ABOUT THIS LEARNING EVENT

Growing trend of public calls for checks and balances, transparency and greater citizens’ involvement in public governance deserves a dedicated rethinking of the roles of parliament within the separation of powers concept. The present practices, recording predominant role of the executive are confronted with emerging citizens’ demands for greater participation in public policy making and oversight, particularly on the expenditure side. As supreme representative bodies, the parliaments play key roles in modern policy shaping and deserve full support to respond to tax payers’ calls for greater fiscal transparency and accountability of the government. Discharge of fundamental roles of the parliament- legislative, representative and scrutiny are soundly reflected through good governance principles of the budget process, that are legality, transparency and accountability. The way the supreme representative bodies exercise their budgetary functions brings quality to democratic setting in general and specifically affects the institutional credibility of parliaments.

Structured around the idea of the strengthening the parliament in its legislative and oversight roles, this webinar will offer an overview of mechanisms proven by good practice that contribute to fiscal transparency and accountability. The focus of the debate will be facilitated through the prism of the PEFA assessment and its indicators, as the leading milestones of reaffirming the role of parliaments in improving PFM. We will examine the PEFA indicators relevant for parliament’s role in the budget process and seek for decisive mechanisms and practices that allow for efficient discharge of parliament’s rights and duties in the budget process. This knowledge sharing opportunity will also cover the best existing practices of the parliamentary committees, its members and administrative staff in pursuing the budget related duties. The role of the ‘4th state power’, the supreme audit institutions and their relations with parliaments as the primary watchdog of the executive will be also a part of this learning event’s debate.

The webinar will be delivered in English.

What will you learn

This webinar will examine specific role of parliament as a whole and of specific parliamentary actors in the entire budget process throughout the prism of PEFA indicators that asses and report on the PFM strengths and weaknesses of specific states. Selected cases of PEFA assessments will be observed individually, whist the overview and debate on practical mechanisms that empower parliaments in the budget process will be approached comparatively.

Further to participation in this webinar, you will be able to:

• Identify parliament’s budget functions and its role in relevant budget cycle parts; Comprehend procedures and practices decisive for efficient discharge of parliament’s budgetary scrutiny of the executive;
• Get familiar with good practices based on PEFA assessment that increase efficiency of parliamentary scrutiny of executive;
• Get a close, first hand feedback on the PEFA assessment process and use of the PEFA reports in empowering the parliaments in efficient contribution to the budget process;
• Understand the relations and benefits from tight collaboration of the parliament’s, independent oversight bodies, NGOs and public towards efficient discharge of parliamentary oversight role.

This learning initiative will be delivered in English, and highly participatory. Participants will be encouraged to share their experiences and country practices.

Who should attend

Members of parliament involved in public finance deliberations, administrative staffers assigned to preparation of parliamentary deliberations of public finance related matters, staffers of the parliamentary budget offices, ministries of finance officials assigned for regular communication with parliaments, representatives of the supreme audit institutions, civil society representatives.

Faculty

• Helena Ramos

Senior Public Sector specialist with over 20 years of work experience in public financial management (PFM), in both government and international organizations.  Extensive working experience with all phases of the PFM cycle, conceptually and in a diagnostic and advisory role.  Her concentrations are in national-level budget planning, transparency of public finance, execution and monitoring; and PFM system diagnostics and remedial action plan development.

Experience in handling policy dialogue, with high-level PFM issues and direct client support. Prior to joining the PEFA Secretariat in 2009, Helena worked extensively in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia.  

• Antonio Leonardo Blasco​​

Senior Financial Management Specialist with over 15-year experience in public financial management and public sector reform, with emphasis on financial management, control (external and internal audit), governance, transparency and public services delivery.

Experience as team leader and team member of several analytical tasks as Regional Studies, Public Expenditures Reviews, CFAAs, PEFAs, and Institutional Governance Reports. Provided Technical Assistance (TA) in a range of topics from External and Internal Audit, Public Accounting, Program Budgeting, Commitment Control, among others and multi-sectoral projects. He joined the PEFA Secretariat in 2020.

• Xhuljeta Çelaj 

Since 2012, when she joined the Albanian State Audit Institution, Xhuljeta Çelaj has at first been engaged in compliance and financial regularity audits carried out by the Audit Department of Budget Central, High Administration of Public Financial Management and Internal Audit. After participating at the GAO 2016 IAFP, she has been working as senior auditor at the Performance Audit Department dealing mainly with performance audits in central budget institutions and also health care institutions in all levels of government.

• Demir Mujević

Secretary of the Committee on Economy since mid-2016, holding a rich experience gained in various positions at the Montenegrin Parliament (Committee on Economy, Finance and Budget Secretariat, Sector for Support to Legislative and Oversight Functions of the Parliament of Montenegro). Member of five Working Groups formed by the Montenegrin Government, for Preparation of Negotiations on Accession of Montenegro to the European Union.

Assigned to provide and administrative support related to preparation of materials for Committee meetings and activities after the meetings and involved in formulating texts for adopted laws and other adopted acts (decisions, declarations, resolutions) and involved in preparing those for submission to the president of Montenegro and for publication to the Official Gazette of Montenegro.

• Johann Seiwald

Johann Seiwald is a Senior Budget Expert at the Parliamentary Budget Office since January 2019 and short-term expert for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He was working as Senior Economist in the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund for 6 year and led several missions to many countries around the globe. His assignments cover in particular public investment management, fiscal transparency, public financial management and gender budgeting. Before joining the Fund, he was the Head of the Austrian Performance Management Office, where he implemented the performance and gender budgeting and management system in Austria.

Prior to this, he was a Senior Expert in the Ministry of Finance, responsible for developing the Austrian Budget Reform, and the Head of the Finance Department for the penitentiary system in the Ministry of Justice. He is author of publication and his recent paper on Gender Budgeting in Austria was awarded the Carlo Masini Award from the Public & Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management.

Practical information

No fee will be charged for officials in the public sector. Applications need to be submitted no later than October 19, 2020. Candidates will need to be approved by the CEF.

 

Partners

This learning initiative was supported by: