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Conversation with Frans Ronsholt, Head of PEFA Secretariat

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Napodano:
Dear PFMBoarders,

it is a great honour for the Board to start up this section of online interviews with leading PFM practitioners by having a chat with Frans Ronsholt, Head of PEFA Secretariat.

I met Frans twice during his regular PEFA presentation rounds and I was always inspired by his dedication to perfecting this assessment tool. PEFA  has helped us practitioners in our assessment works of public finances, while in the process enhancing our dialogue with MoF partners in developing and transition countries.

If you are a registered member of the Board, you have the possibility to pose a question to Frans by making a post (REPLY button) to this topic. The time allotted for questions is  Monday 1st to Sunday 7th November 2010. After this period the interview will be closed and remain in the archive for future reference.

Dear Frans,

welcome to the board fire place. Let me start by asking you a general question for the (very) few of us PFMBoarders who are not yet familiar with PEFA

Q1: What does PEFA stand for and what is its purpose?

Frans:
Dear Mauro and PFM Boarders.

Let me first congratulate you with the establishment of the PFM Board. It is a real pleasure to be able to communicate with you this way. The group of PFM experts that work internationally is always spread all over the globe and difficult to reach through one medium, so the Board has an important function in that respect. But to get back to your question:

PEFA is an abbreviation of Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability. The motivation behind the PEFA Program, which was established in 2001, was to strengthen the ability of aid recipients and donors to assess and improve country public expenditure, procurement and financial accountability systems. PEFA was, thus, born out of a partnership between the World Bank, the European Commission, UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A Steering Committee, comprising members of these agencies, manages the Program and a Secretariat, located in Washington DC, implements the PEFA program activities.

The PEFA Program goal is to help improve government financial management systems. The Program has approached this goal by developing a tool to measure the strengths and weaknesses of a country’s public financial management (PFM) systems, and by promoting processes that enhance government ownership of PFM reforms and lead to stronger collaboration and coordination among the donor agencies that support the formulation and implementation of the reform programs. This is also known as the 'Strengthened Approach to Supporting PFM Reform'.

This entails, in the first stage, the undertaking of a detailed examination of the status of a country’s PFM systems. In line with the Strengthened Approach  this shoud be done as a joint effort using a commonly agreed assessment tool. For that purpose PEFA developed the PFM Performance Measurement Framework, known as the PEFA Framework. The initial assessment helps establish performance baselines while repeat assessments help in monitoring performance progress over time, all of which have the potential for making a significant positive impact on the formulation of reform programs as well as monitor the effectiveness of those reforms. The Secretariat provides objective guidance and expert advice on the application of the Framework to any interested party.

Napodano:
Frans,

Thank you for the kind words on the Board. Dialogue is what we always say being important in our profession and this board can support it in a community-like manner, away from pressure and formality of assignments.

Q2: Since its first application in 2005 I believe, in how many countries the PEFA tool has been applied? From these assessments can we draw lessons/trends on the status of Public Financial Management in developing and transition countries?

Osa:
Dear Frans,
I would like to introduce myself, I am Public Finance management Specialist at Aid Effectiveness Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia to support the Government of Indonesia which is The National Development Planning Agency ( Bappenas). Our objective is to make all grants received from Development Partners by the Indonesian Government more effective and efficient. This has been stipulated by The Paris Declaration and The Jakarta Commitment.

Question 3 : Last year  around 17 Line Ministries has been audited by the National Audit Board as receiving grants from the Development partners with "off treasury". This means that the line ministries directly receive grants without conducting registration and administration to the Ministry of Finance, as stated in the Guidelines on Accounting System on Foreign Grant, by MoF. What kind of chart do you think is necessary to smoothen this administration ? Usually we have to register all grants as "on budget - on treasury" in our state budget

Question 4 : How do you approach Development Partners to really conduct the process of aid as 'government driven', and not "donor driven" ? How do you separate this difference and what way should the government proceed to resolve this ? As you may know, many countries have different fiscal years ( such as JICA - Japan, or GTZ - Germany) which have sequences April-March or July-June, while the Indonesian Govt's fiscal year is January-December.

Thank you for attention.

Best regards,
Osa Hartoyo/ Mr.

Napodano:
This is clarification for future questions to Frans by PFM Boarders.

Questions should be related to the PEFA program and assessment tools for PFM.
That said, I trust that Frans will answer to the two questions already made by Osa

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