Despite progress in addressing key fiscal weaknesses in many countries, significant policy challenges remain in advanced, emerging, and low-income economies, and must be faced in an environment where downside risks to growth have increased. Many advanced economies face very large adjustment...

PREFACE At the request of the Malian Ministry of Finance, a technical assistance mission visited Bamako during August 12–21, 2013. The purpose of the mission was to identify issues and options that need to be considered when adopting an automatic petroleum product pricing mechanism. The...

This Technical Assistance Report focuses on continued modernization of the Malian tax system and administration. The crisis that has afflicted Mali since 2012 has had an adverse economic impact, reflected in a 25 percent decline in government resources and negative growth of -1.2 percent....

This Technical Assistance Report discusses continued modernization of the Malian tax system and administration of natural resources. The Malian mining sector essentially consists of gold mining. The diversification policy is a failure at this point. The authorities' stated objective of...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY One of the most important aspects of good fiscal management is the capacity of government to formulate and communicate fiscal policies. Fundamental to this is the production and publication of fiscal reports which are both timely and complete and written in an accessible...

This Technical Assistance Report for Mali examines the performance of its public expenditure management system. The IMF report suggests that payments arrears can possibly be monitored overtime through the financial management system (PRED), based on the validation of invoices. The principle of...

Persistently high debt ratios in advanced economies and emerging fragilities in the developing world cast clouds on the global fiscal landscape. In advanced economies, with narrowing budget deficits, the average public debt ratio is expected to stabilize in 2013–14—but it will be at a...

This article discusses the mission to strengthen the financial system of the Republic of Togo. The European Union Delegation and the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF signed a technical agreement with the Togolese government. According to the project, a communication program and a training...

Overall, fiscal risks remain elevated, according to this issue, although there are signs that in some key respects they are less acute than six months ago. Past efforts with fiscal consolidation are beginning to bear fruit, particularly when buttressed by credible institutional commitments....

At the request of the Government of Liberia (GoL), the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) led an external assessment of the central government’s public financial management (PFM) systems based on the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) methodology. The assessment was...