SPB Newsfeed: Key Training Events on Fiscal Management This Spring at CEF
This spring the CEF will host several key training events on fiscal institutions and their role in improving the quality of fiscal management. These training activities respond to the needs of South East European countries to strengthen fiscal institutions where weaknesses have been identified in recent volatile global economic conditions. The events will be delivered in close cooperation with top international experts, including from the International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Affairs Department, and will be financed by the European Union.
The training activities are part of the Strategic Planning and Budgeting (SPB) project that aims to strengthen the quality and consistency of strategic documents, macroeconomic and fiscal frameworks, and policy coordination linked to fiscal impact assessments of structural reforms. Mira Dobovišek, CEF director, sees this project as a way to assist SEE countries in strengthening their fiscal institutions.
“In recent years we have witnessed increasing pressures on countries in the region to further reform their public financial management (PFM) systems to enable them to effectively deal with the consequences of the global financial crisis. The weaknesses in existing PFM systems that have been identified during the crisis have led to intensified efforts to complete ongoing reform priorities. We believe that the training events that the CEF will deliver in the next two years as part of the Strategic Planning and Budgeting project will be an important element in seeking to overcome these weaknesses,” stressed Ms. Dobovišek.
The CEF talked also to Brian Olden, Deputy Division Chief at the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, to gather the IMF’s views on the role of fiscal institutions and the training events in this area for SEE.
“The reasons for strengthening fiscal institutions are very clear. Consolidation planning needs to be supported by clearly articulated fiscal objectives, comprehensive and binding medium-term budget frameworks, greater independent scrutiny, and a stronger focus on performance. Many of these elements are underdeveloped in SEE countries (although these weaknesses are not confined to this region alone). The impact of the crisis has increased the level of awareness of both domestic policymakers and external multilateral institutions, including the IMF and the European Commission, as to the extent of the weaknesses inherent in existing fiscal institutions together with the realization that it is now time to ensure that meaningful reforms are enacted to address the problems. Therefore, this seems to be an opportune time to deliver a series of training events on strengthening fiscal institutions,” explained Mr. Olden.
The first of the series of events that CEF will deliver this spring is Building Fiscal Institutions to Meet Post-Crisis Challenges on May 13–17. The seminar has been designed for senior-level officials and will examine the role of strong fiscal institutions in improving the quality of fiscal management and helping ensure fiscal sustainability.
A workshop on Medium-Term Budgeting will follow on May 29–31. Through lectures, participant presentations, and interactive group exercises, it will improve officials’ understanding of the objectives and features of multiyear budgeting, and the challenges and bottlenecks facing reform efforts.
The third training event will be Program Budgeting, Evaluation, and Spending Review on June 17–19. This workshop will help participants better understand the challenges in implementing program-oriented budgets.
