Public Expenditure Newsletter Issue
7, January - June 2003
Workshop
on the Quality of Public Spending in Brazil 26 and 27 June 2003, Brasilia, Brazil
This
workshop, organized by the Ministry of Planning and the Institute
of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) in Brazil, with Bank support,
marked the beginning of the Bank’s program of Analytical and
Advisory Assistance (AAA) on public expenditures in Brazil. The
main reason for the workshop was the growing realization - expressed
clearly by the Ministry of Planning and IPEA - that there is a critical
need to monitor and find ways of improving the quality of public
spending in Brazil, especially in the current context of tight fiscal
constraints.
The
seminar included speakers from the World Bank, various government
ministries, IPEA and the Economic Commission for Latin America and
the Caribbean, as well as from a private consultancy and local universities;
experiences from Brazil as well as elsewhere were discussed. Bank
staff participants included: Yasuhiko Matsuda, Antônio Magalhães,
Ritva Reinikka, Suhas Parandekar, Kathy Lindert, Gordon Hughes,
Joachim von Amsberg and Andrew Sunil Rajkumar. Some sessions approached
the subject from a technical perspective, with participants discussing
the measurement and evaluation of different types and compositions
of expenditures. In other cases, participants adopted a more institutional
perspective, debating various ways of improving the government’s
capacity to implement public spending of high quality. There were
also several sessions focusing on individual sectors, including
education, health, social protection, the environment, water and
sanitation, energy and urban development. Links are provided to
the workshop’s program as well as the presentations of the
Bank speakers; other presentations will be made available at a later
date.
In
the closing session, a number of key components of a future work
program for improving the quality of public spending in Brazil were
laid out. These included: (a) identification and publicizing of
clear targets/indicators for programs; (b) implementation of better
data collection (especially in the area of household surveys); (c)
implementation of proper program evaluation; (d) tracking expenditures
in different sectors, especially in the health, education, water/sanitation
and transport sectors; (e) analysis of earmarking and spending rigidity
in Brazil; (f) improvements in the process of release of funds (i.e.
in the current system of contingenciamento); and (g) development
of methods to improve the institutional aspects of public spending
management, e.g. a better allocation of expenditure responsibilities
across the different ministries.
