WASHINGTON, May 12, 2014 –The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has approved a grant totaling US$10.2 million to continue helping the Republic of Chad strengthen its public financial management (PFM) capacity. The grant provides additional financing to scale up project activities in a previous project aimed at building up the core public sector capacity as an important requirement for improving public service delivery in a country prone to fragility and instability.
The grant will help the Chadian government to improve accountability in the use of resources managed through the public financial management system. It will finance activities to scale up the following:
- Implementation of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS),
- Training, technical assistance and capacity building activities in public financial management to implement the new organic finance law and other associated Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) directives, and
- Accountability activities including the preparation and dissemination of citizen’s budgets. The grant will also contribute to the development of Medium-Term Budget Frameworks, building monitoring and evaluation capacity, and strengthening debt management capacity.
The proposed project will support continued implementation PFM reforms consistent with the fourth strategic axis of Chad’s 2013-2015 National Development Plan and its PFM reform strategy.
Chad is among the poorest and least-developed countries in the world with a per capita gross national income (GNI) of US$740 in 2012. Between 2003 and 2011, the country managed to reduce its national poverty headcount rate from 55 percent to 47 percent during the period. But due to population growth, the total number of poor Chadians increased by 15 percent.
“The Government has identified weak governance as an obstacle to achieving the country’s development objectives, and has initiated a reform program to improve its governance systems, including public financial management,” said Paul Noumba Um, World Bank Country Director for Chad. “It has demonstrated its commitment to these reforms, as seen from the recent adoption of the new Organic Finance Law and the engagement to transpose the CEMAC directives on PFM. This additional financing will build on this recent positive dynamic.”
Continued implementation of reforms to improve budget practices are expected to contribute to increase fiscal space and improve capacity for enhanced service delivery in the medium and long term.
“This project will be complementary to the interventions by other development partners, including the African Development Bank, the European Union, the IMF, France, and the United States of America,” said Sebastien Dessus, Lead Economist and Task Team Leader for the project. “The project is also expected to complement efforts undertaken by authorities to reach soon the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) completion point, notably through improved debt and public investment management.”
The success of the project will be measured by: (i) improved in-year budget reporting; (ii) improved end-year reporting; (iii) improved budget execution; (iv) increased IFMIS coverage of the Public administration; (v) increased budget information available to the public; and (vi) strengthened debt management
