Strengthening Public Expenditure Management in Albania
In 2002, at the start of the second phase of the Strengthening Public Expenditure Management (SPEM) project and following the REPIM team’s initial assessment of the status of Albania’s budget process, a decision was taken to communicate the outcome of this assessment in a novel way. The team commissioned the creation of two sets of cartoons.
The first set caricatured the budget process in operation at the time, as it was explained to the SPEM Team by the staff of the Ministry of Finance. These cartoons, in practice, were self explanatory and cut through the perennial problems of translating concepts clearly between languages. When presented to MoF staff in 2002, the recognition of the existing process and its key weaknesses was clear.
The second set presented a vision for a “strengthened” system, built around the Medium Term Budget Programme (or PBA to use its Albanian acronym). There was appreciation from Ministry of Finance staff for the vision but a strong air of scepticism as to whether it could really be achieved in Albania. The seed had been planted, however, and the first stage of the change management that would be required for the successful design, acceptance and implementation of a “strengthened” system was underway.
The cartoons have been used many times since. Over subsequent years, the Ministry of Finance and other Government of Albania staff have continued to recognise their budget process within the same set of cartoons commissioned in 2002.
By 2008, the Ministry of Finance and its centre of government partners had moved much closer to a modern system of policy-led and performance-influenced public expenditure management. As with all reformers, Albania remains on a journey towards the full implementation of the 2002 ‘vision’. By 2008, however, the recognition of Government of Albania staff was increasingly for the process as presented in the ‘vision’ of 2002 and much less so for the system that was in existence in 2002.
In the early stages the cartoons were used almost exclusively within the Ministry of Finance. They have subsequently been presented to a meeting of the Council of Ministers, a retreat for General Secretaries and to a number of other audiences. After seeing them, the Prime Minister Mr Sali Berisha asked for copies to be provided to all Ministers.
The cartoons were fun to commission and have been great fun to present. In the process they have proven to be a change management tool that has been unusually effective at all levels, from the most senior position in the government through the middle managers to those at the coal face without whom the system cannot work.
Would there be any interest from the PFM community in taking a look at the cartoons?
