Budgeting for Results: Moving towards Performance Budgeting

The 8th Annual CABRI Seminar on Budgeting for Results: Moving towards Performance Budgeting was held from 9-11 May 2012 in South Africa.

The theme of the 2012 Annual Seminar takes into consideration that many countries in Africa are shifting from traditional budgeting methods to modern budgeting systems which focus more on performance and results. The seminar was designed to explore the appropriateness and advantages of shifting to performance budgeting in Africa and the preconditions needed for programme or performance-based budgeting reform.

Making Budgets Work: The Implementation Challenge

This year’s Seminar was co-hosted by the Rwandese Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and took place at the Serena Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda from 17 – 18 August 2011.

The 2011 Annual Seminar is designed to explore the common implementation challenges in budget reform in Africa and share ways to make budgets work. Specifically, the 7th Annual Seminar covered the following topics:

Good Financial Governance: Towards Modern Budgeting

Sound budget practices, public finance systems that serve our welfare goals, and accounting systems that have integrity and respect are essential for promoting democracy and effective governance. Underpinning these practices and systems is a constant flow of transparent, comprehensive and timely information, which allows decision-makers to govern and empowers citizens to hold their governments to account.

Strengthening Budget Practices in Africa

Strengthening budget practices is at the heart of CABRI's work. It is an essentiel element to better service delivery by the state and better development prospects. Across Africa, citizens are asking their governments to provide them with better services and often, this has to be done with limited resources. Developing a coherent framework for budget allocation and management is a continuous process, which takes account of both country circumstances and regional and international trends. In light of this, the seminar enabled senior budget officials to highlight budget reform priorities, gain a deeper understanding of how to undertake performance budgeting, find ways to integrate aid and PFM management and carefully appraise and manage capital projects across the continent.

Are we asking the right questions?
Embedding a medium term perspective in budgeting

In asking the right questions around the areas of the budget that take
several years to change, we are able to better understand and address
the country-specific complexities of moving from an annual to a multi-
year budget process. The seminar provided the intellectual space to investigate what lies beyond the introduction of an MTEF framework,
what building blocks are required and what obstacles should be
overcome for such a mechanism to ensure that decisions on the raising
of public resources and how they are allocated are taken in view of the
medium term impact and of these decisions.

Bridging the gap: from policies to budget

Ensuring appropriate linkage of budgets to policies is a key challenge for all countries, especially those seeking to reform and strengthen their public expenditure management systems. The seminar addressed the key weaknesses that cause disparities between planning and budgeting systems in many African countries.

Managing complexity: from fragmentation to coordination

Budgeting involves the combination of multiple information sources, different perspectives and diverse interest groups, which all influence complex decisions. As government service delivery and financing modalities grow more complex, the demands on budget management tools and processes have increased under less favorable human resources environment and greater policy and financing uncertainty. The seminar provided a platform to investigate the institutional and technical mechanisms to manage the inherently complex and fragmented nature of budgeting.

2004 Budget Reform

CABRI was launched in 2004 as an informal network of senior budget officials of ministries of finance and/or planning in Africa. This initiative first focus of discussions tackles the difficulties that African countries face in establishing realistic budgets, building budget credibility, implementing a medium term budget framework and improving the quality of expenditure. The seminar provided an opportunity for participants to discuss and share experiences on reform modalities that had been successful and those that have not been successful.