Public Budgeting in African Nations aims to provide usable budgeting and fiscal policy management information to development practitioners interested in improving the performance of governments in the context of good governance. It shares regional and cross-cultural experiences with international audiences and gives reflective attention to comparative budgeting and fiscal policy management. With a promising economic and fiscal forecast, such information is timely for international development practitioners and for scholars and researchers interested in advancing development management. This book adopts an interdisciplinary/pragmatic approach to analyze and present research findings on public budgeting as a sustainable development tool. The central argument is that development practice will benefit from a bottom-up, decentralized approach to budgeting and fiscal policy management, involving national, sub-national, and civil society institutions. From this perspective, a balanced budget should draw from and reflect values and priorities across the full spectrum of social and political life.

This analysis of budgetary systems and policies across the world examines how politics, culture, and economics influence public finance.

More than 15 years ago, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa embarked on a program of budgetary reform, an important element of which was a medium-term budget framework (MTBF). This working paper focuses on the performance of these frameworks in six countries–– Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. It assesses the effectiveness of MTBFs in achieving improved fiscal discipline, resource allocation, and certainty of funding, as well as wider economic and social criteria such as poverty reduction and more efficient public investment. In most countries, early successes were not sustained, and budgetary outcomes did not improve, partly for technical reasons, such as poor data and inadequate forecasting methodologies, but also because the reforms were largely supply driven. The paper argues that the development of MTBFs typically falls into four distinct phases. To make the transition from one phase to the next, developing countries should focus on building their capability in macrofiscal forecasting and analysis, and in improving the credibility of the annual budget process.

In this paper public budgeting in Kenya as evidence of challenges for development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is examined. Tracing the efforts made by the Kenya government since independence in 1963 to 2012, successes, failures, and challenges to successful public budgeting regime in the country are outlined. Furthermore, using data from the World Bank database, country policy and institutional assessment (CPIA) index for 10 SSA countries including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe are compared. Key challenges in service delivery and leakages of public resources are identified. These challenges are attributed to problems related to allocation of funds, monitoring of public expenditure, identification and ranking of development priorities, inflexible budgetary procedures, and lack of a legal framework for stakeholder participation in planning and implementation in public budgeting. Across the region, statistics show no significant improvement in indicators of public financial management in the 10 SSA countries for the period 2005 through 2011 despite the high and significant association between financial management indicators and annual GDP growth percentage. It is hoped that structural initiatives recently adopted in Kenya and currently being implemented may remedy this situation. These include; implementation of Vision 2030 and the new constitution, the CDF initiative, and the recent establishment of key institutions like Kenya Revenue Authority, Office of Fiscal Analysis, and legislative framework in the Financial Management Act No.5.

Public Budgeting in African Nations aims to provide usable budgeting and fiscal policy management information to development practitioners interested in improving the performance of governments in the context of good governance. It shares regional and cross-cultural experiences with international audiences and gives reflective attention to comparative budgeting and fiscal policy management. With a promising economic and fiscal forecast, such information is timely for international development practitioners and for scholars and researchers interested in advancing development management. This book adopts an interdisciplinary/pragmatic approach to analyze and present research findings on public budgeting as a sustainable development tool. The central argument is that development practice will benefit from a bottom-up, decentralized approach to budgeting and fiscal policy management, involving national, sub-national, and civil society institutions. From this perspective, a balanced budget should draw from and reflect values and priorities across the full spectrum of social and political life.

There are strong similarities between the French and French-inspired African PEM systems in terms of the legal setting, rules, and procedures. However, there are differences in practice, particularly in accounting and reporting, audit, and external control. Among the African countries themselves, there are many common features but also marked differences in audit and external control.

Budgeting and budgetary institutions play a critical role in resource allocation, government accountability, and improved fiscal and social outcomes. This volume distills lessons from practices in designing better fiscal institutions, citizen friendly budgets, and open and transparent processes of budget preparation and execution. It also highlights newer concepts of performance budgeting, accrual accounting, activity based costing, and the use of information and communication technology in budgeting. These tools of analysis are supplemented by a review of budgeting in post-conflict countries and two country case studies on the reform of budgeting systems.