Strengthening Public Finances for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development

The Republic of Congo is the third-largest crude oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria and Angola and is heavily dependent on oil production and oil exports. With a population of 5.5 million, Congo is a lower middle-income economy, endowed with abundant natural resources. The economy is heavily dependent on oil production, which accounted for 45 percent of GDP, 75 percent of government revenue, and 95 percent of exports of goods during the height of oil prices (2010-14). Besides crude oil, Congo is endowed with a wealth of mineral resources, including reserves of potash, phosphate, iron, and copper, which remain largely untapped. Much of the country is covered with tropical forests of softwoods and hardwoods (over 65 percent of the country's total surface area), a fragile ecosystem that removes carbon from the atmosphere and stores it, thus helping to slow global warming. This Public Finance Review (PFR) aims to support the implementation of the National Development Plan. This PFR provides analysis and advice to the government on two objectives: (i) to increase expenditure efficiency to support inclusive growth in a sustainable manner, and (ii) to boost mobilization of broad-based revenue to finance the development objectives envisaged in the new National Development Plan. This PFR is performed as part of the World Bank Group's broader efforts to support the enhancement of fiscal management in Congo. A public finance review rather than a public expenditure review was undertaken because revenue mobilization is critical for Congo to restore fiscal sustainability. The PFR complements recently completed and ongoing analytical pieces on Congo's fiscal management, including the Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool analysis (2019); Debt Management Performance Assessment (2021); the Republic of Congo Economic Updates (2019 and 2020); the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment (2023, and the Public Expenditure Review on Human Development (2022). This PFR, therefore, focuses on areas that are not addressed by these analytic reports