Fiscal Management

In Western democracies, systems of checks and balances built into government structures have formed the core of good governance, and have helped empower citizens for more than two hundred years. Many developing countries, however, continue to suffer from unsatisfactory and often dysfunctional governance systems, including inappropriate allocation of resources, inefficient revenue systems, and weak delivery of vital public services. This book addresses these issues by providing tools to help assess a government's fiscal health from the perspective of public accountability, including the political economy of the budget, performance-based budgeting, revenue performance, debt management, measuring a government's net worth, assessing fiscal risks, reforming civil service, and strengthening institutions of accountability.