The Financial Management Umbrella Program, an initiative of the World Bank Group, supports the development and execution of public financial management (PFM) reforms around the world. We fund World Bank teams that deliver tailored advisory services, professional development, analytics, and knowledge products matched to the specific PFM-related needs and requests of client countries. Our teams work side by side with government officials to help them put good practices to work, and to meet global standards in PFM. We also produce knowledge products for global use, cross-pollinating good ideas, good tools, and good practices.
Overview
About the Financial Management Umbrella Program
Watch our video outlining what the Financial Management Umbrella Program does.
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Deliver Technical Support
Advisory and analytical services help country partners to design and implement reforms.
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Build Capacity
Professional development opportunities build capacity for implementation and sustainability of PFM reforms.
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Generate Knowledge
World Bank teams generate -- and share -- knowledge, including good practices and actionable insights.
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Fuel Collaboration
Co-creation and collaboration are hallmarks of our work -- at government, country, regional, and global levels.
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Integrate Programs
We integrate financial management reforms into World Bank operations, heightening those operations' functioning and impact.
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Advance Innovation
We work with partners to create, test, and pilot innovative approaches to financial management.
Improved Government Outcomes and Stronger Economies
Reforming PFM systems and practices can be game-changing for citizens. PFM practices determine things like the flow of funding for education, healthcare, and a range of government services. Good PFM practices are also transparent, empowering citizens and producing government accountability.
PFM also plays a critical role in producing a good environment for economic growth and job creation. Effective budgeting support for public projects and smart resource allocation fuel development. Strong public finances attract private investment. The Financial Mangagement Umbrella Program also supports state-owned enterprises, a major source of jobs.
Areas in which We Work
The Financial Management Umbrella Program's work is organized along three modules with corresponding components and five cross-cutting themes.
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Managing Public Finances
This module includes fiscal and expenditure management along with public investment and public asset management, as well as procurement. We help ensure good stewardship, and advancement of climate and equity goals.
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Financial Reporting and Auditing
The second module covers fiscal reporting and transparency plus accountability and oversight. We help countries develop and make reforms that improve transparency and accountability in the use of public resources.
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Public-Private Sector Interface
Governance of state-owned enterprises and corporate financial reporting make up this third module. We focus on public-private interactions that have an impact on attracting investors and driving growth.
Cross-Cutting Themes
Five cross-cutting themes run throghout our work.
How government money is spent – whether it goes for projects, programs, and infrastructure that advance climate goals or undermines them – determines whether Paris Agreement promises can be met.
A growing number of central finance agencies have requested World Bank support to help them integrate climate considerations into their work. And so have World Bank operational teams, who must deliver on the Bank’s commitment to ensuring projects are designed and implemented in climate-friendly ways.
We cover key budgeting, spending and operational commitments, from green and climate-resilient buildings to informed purchasing to better-run state-owned enterprises (SOEs). SOE reform is designed to include important climate advances in key sectors such as energy, transport, and water. Other areas include strategic planning, public investments, and intergovernmental fiscal systems.
FMUP also supported the development of the world's first climate-related disclosures standard for the public sector, working with the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board.
We also directly support the work of the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action.
And we work closely and coordinate with our partner, the World Bank's Climate Change Governance program.
GRPFM, also known as gender responsive budgeting (GRB), is an approach to budgeting that explicitly considers the impact of fiscal policy, public financial management practices, and public administration on gender equity, girls’ and women’s development, and on potentially marginalized populations (for example, people with disabilities, minorities).
Our projects take gender into consideration in other ways, as well, including by incorporating gender considerations into the composition of professional development offered through our programs.
In addition to high tech, there are innovations on the high-touch side. Our GovEnable project, which is centered on face-to-face problem-solving, takes the novel approach of bringing officials together across sectors to identify, analyze, and then co-create and jointly implement solutions to bottlenecks in the delivery of government services.
FMUP supports programs that include cross-sector analysis and collaboration. Our GovEnable framework is specifically oriented toward bringing people together from different parts of government, and often beyond, to jointly analyze problems and co-create solutions.
An Initiative of the World Bank -- And Our Partners
The Financial Management Umbrella Program is part of the World Bank Group. We fund World Bank teams to engage in the creation of global tools and in-country support. We draw together the World Bank's knowledge resources and expertise, and we leverage an ecosystem of World Bank partnerships and relationships.
We are a partnership. Our work on improving public financial management systems would not be possible without the generous financial support of our donors. Those donors also serve as vital strategic partners, providing guidance, sharing knowledge, and shaping direction. In addition to the partners whose logos are in the right column of this page, we are also fortunate to have The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria as a partner.
Our Development Objective
The development objective of the Financial Management Umbrella Program is to support World Bank client countries to undertake sustainable, transparent, and accountable allocations of public financial resources to achieve positive development outcomes by the public and private sectors.
