As a federation Nigeria is very interesting when it comes to budget reform as each State is in a position to implement PFM reforms in its own way. I am working there with ESSPIN as a PFM member of the Medium Term Sector Support teams in the education sector. We work in six states and the response from each state is sometimes very different. In Lagos state PFM is a statewide activity - all sectors and all ministries are supposed to switch to three year planned budgets over the next few years with ten currently at work. Several ministries such as education and health have dedicated technical support. Seven or so have support from one consulting firm. There is a separate program [SPARC] providing support to the Ministry of Economics and Budget and a further program in the Ministry of Finance. Despite all this it has been difficult to get the education ministries and agencies to include priority activities which they have identified in their budget submissions. On the other hand in Kwara state a very energetic Commissioner for Education has driven the reform process across the whole sector to the extent of having a formal MoU between the major ministries and agencies in the state education sector to define their responsibilities, and there is a high level of inclusion of MTSS activities in the annual budget [above 90% for the Ministry of Education]. The other states fall somewhere in between these extremes.
