Where has macro-fiscal analysis worked well ?

[knightd]

Hi all,

First time poster - long time reader. I am working for the Sierra Leone Government building a macro-fiscal function in the Finance Ministry. I was wondering if I could get some of your thoughts on which countries we could look to as having well-established, well-regarded macro-fiscal processes that are integrated with the Budget/policy formulation. Having built a team and now that we are operating a macro-fiscal model, we are hoping to learn lessons from other countries to improve what we are doing. We are looking particularly for other Sub-Saharan African countries that have really made progress in this area, or indeed any other countries, and what they have done that has been successful. We are also hoping to subsequently go on a study mission to a selected country to find out more.

Many thanks all,

David Knight

[Napodano]

David,

welcome on Board!

Not a specialist in this area but I suggest you to check the CABRI web-site at http://cabri-sbo.org/

You can also try to directly contact  Aarti Shah,  GTZ International advisor, Aarti.Shah AT cabri-sbo.org . I met her in Albania and she was always ready to help.
 

[knightd]

Napodano - many thanks for the info, I have emailed Aarti and look forward to hearing back from her.

Appreciate anyone else's views too.

David

[Kit Nicholson]

David

I'm quite a bit out of date, but there was a period in Namibia in the 1990s when a core group of economists were working with 'NAMAF' - Namibia Macroeconomic Framework - to try to coordinate analysis around planning and budgeting. This group spanned the Central Bank, Ministry of Finance and National Planning Commission. As I understand it, MF and BoN started elaborating from the basic framework, but retained an ability for comparison, at least for a while. I suspect it may now have been superceded, as there is nothing on the internet and the BoN are reporting work on what sounds like a more sophisticated economic model. You could try to get in touch with Mihe Gaomab at the BoN to get an update on the initial successes and how this has worked out in more recent years.

Kit

[petagny]

South Africa is probably another example. I don't have direct experience, but the quality of the budgetary documentation suggests it has sound underpinnings. Others contributors may know more...

Reading between the lines of a recent World Bank report on MENA countries suggest that Morocco and Tunisia might be worth a look (but may not be ideal for a visit because of language issue).

[knightd]

Thanks all for the comments, much appreciated. I've contacted some people in the South African Treasury, but they seem to be pretty far ahead of where we are at the moment. I was trying to get in touch with Mihe, but the email address I found for him at Bank of Namibia is not working. Does anyone have a contact for him (or anyone else in Namibia involved in macro-fiscal?)

Thanks
Dave

[STONE]

South Africa may be a bit far ahead now but it is still worth looking at what they did in the past.  Kit referred to Namibia - Namibia's approach drew heavily on the approach used by Botswana.  That history is well worth looking at.  I don't know how things stand there now, but it is true that a lot of the background for reforming PFM came out of the Botswana experience.