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Improving Public Financial Management in The Caribbean

20 July 2006

Senior finance and budget officials from across the Caribbean region are participating in a workshop on ‘Improving Public Financial Management in the Caribbean’ taking place in Belize City.

The five-day programme, which started on 17 July 2006, is focusing on international and Commonwealth best practice in modern public financial management (PFM).

Jointly sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC) and the Government of Belize, the workshop is designed to be highly interactive and a strategic platform for experience sharing, said Kaifala Marah, Adviser, Public Expenditure Management, with the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Governance and Institutional Development Division (GIDD).

“Commonwealth Caribbean countries have made steady progress in refining their PFM systems, to which the CFTC has in some cases made technical contributions,” said Mr Marah. “However, these countries continue to face mounting pressures to reinvent their systems to make further improvements in line with international dynamics. Hence, we aim to draw upon the experience of the countries regarded as leaders in the field of PFM innovation.”

“The workshop is the first of its kind launched by the Secretariat in the region and we intend to robustly take forward PFM reform in-country to continue to contribute to ongoing PFM reform,” stated GIDD’s Dr Rose Marie Endeley, Adviser, Caribbean and Mediterranean Regions, who is jointly delivering the programme.

A set of Guidelines for Public Financial Management Reform -- endorsed by finance ministers and adopted by the Commonwealth summit in Malta in November 2005 -- is being presented at the workshop, which will consider, among others, the Singaporean experience as a prime example of Commonwealth PFM best practice.

The workshop will also seek to assist participants in preparing individual plans around PFM for use in their respective countries. “PFM is a race without end won only by the willing,” said Mr Marah. “And we will continue to encourage developing member countries to build on what they have already achieved.”