Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI) welcomes you to our latest Notes on PFM in Africa.
Advancing on CABRI's Expansion Phase 2024 to 2029, we have achieved much across the continent this quarter, as in our first. In the last Notes on PFM in Africa, we announced work towards an upcoming webinar in Phase I of our newest work area on digital Public Financial Management (PFM) with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Simultaneously however, we have been working with ODI on Phase II, with the preparation for an in-person International Conference on Public Finance in the Digital Era, this November in South Africa. We also laid the groundwork for a new Building Public Finance Capabilities (BPFC) programme for improved nutrition outcomes in African countries supported by GiZ Belgium.
Moreover, we delivered an insightful webinar presenting cross-country findings from the case studies of Phase I of our work on digital PFM. Additionally, within our PFM Reforms and Systems work area, we have also successfully concluded country work sponsored by UNICEF Algeria on programme-based budgeting with a special focus on the provision of social services for children.
In August, CABRI hosted an in-person Policy Dialogue on PFM as an enabler of health facilities autonomy in member country Mauritius which brought ministries of health and finance together from across Africa. A key lesson, reaffirming the importance of CABRI’s Sector PFM work area and the need for engaging experts from finance and another sector to find solutions to local problems, is that evidence of cost-effectiveness in higher levels of primary health care would advance facility autonomy reforms.
In addition, the four country-teams in our 2024 BPFC programme cohort undertook a mid-term review in September. The teams are focusing their ongoing work on PFM challenges in implementing capital projects and on the broader area of managing public debt, within CABRI’s PFM Sustainability and Inclusion work area. Through their in-country stakeholder engagements and consultations, each have built coalitions and networks within their governments, minimising resistance to change and deepening the understanding of existing challenges and opportunities for reform.
Country contexts are constantly evolving, particularly shaped by a myriad fiscal polycrises and international economic uncertainty, and driving changes in the PFM landscape. General elections in Mauritius and Mozambique will bring into the spotlight public trust and the expectations of public office - the topic of our last newsletter. Other events like the recent health outbreaks of the Marburg and Mpox viruses, droughts in Zambia, South Africa and Zimbabwe and flooding in Nigeria, call into question the resilience of PFM systems and capabilities.
Considering the ambit of CABRI’s work, even just in this quarter, together with our ongoing analysis of evolving country contexts within African countries, it is undeniable that in reality the scope of PFM has and will be expanded significantly; and is certainly no longer confined to its early definition. Traditionally, considered to comprise the laws, rules, systems and processes used to mobilise revenue and allocate and manage public funds, our definition of PFM extends now to broader fiscal policy risks and sustainability and ensuring that these laws, rules and systems responds to broadened fiscal needs.
In addition to the known stakeholders in these wider sets of PFM fields, the drivers of change increasingly include more agents and circumstances. Drivers of change potentially include: disease burden, disasters, regional dynamics, country conflict, politics, donor programmes, media focus, academic and other thought leadership, citizen activism, etc. This, together with the ever increasing informatisation of society, presents a tall order for PFM praxis – both in terms of the breadth of scope of PFM but also in terms of the expectations of acceleration of innovation and change to improve public trust and public office.
The informatisation of society, makes digital PFM reform unavoidable. The question is, under what circumstances are digital reform desirable and effective? The digital era is creating new possibilities for governments, but also raising expectations about what services governments should be able to deliver and how to deliver them.
Building on the lessons from CABRI’s work on digital PFM Phase I, ministries of finance are central to meeting these expectations. Whereas decisions around digital tools for PFM often start with the aim of improving the efficiency of Ministry of Finance processes per se, improvements to higher-level PFM functionality objectives and country objectives are desirable.
Important work is to be done at our November international conference, which will bring together public finance, digital, and development leaders. The aim is to share experiences on using digital tools for PFM and service delivery, and foster a shared vision for how to leverage technology better in and across African countries. More specifically, this conference seeks to identify the role of finance ministries in supporting the wider digital transformation of government, the economy, and society, both at the country level, and collectively through global and regional initiatives, including South Africa’s G-20 Presidency in 2025 and the African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy.
Membership to CABRI is open to all African countries. Visit our PFM Knowledge Hub for more information on becoming a CABRI member country or send us an email: info@cabri-sbo.org We also welcome engagements within the broader Public Finance Management community.