This Public Expenditure Review (PER) builds on the commitments of the 2003 Country Economic Memorandum (CEM), and 2002 Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) Progress Report, being its primary objective to assess strengths and weaknesses in key areas of public expenditure, and identify policy options...

This public expenditure review is produced jointly by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, and focuses on social sectors spending and leaves aside infrastructure and other sectors. This report, finalized in June 2002 and discussed with Authorities in mid-August 2002, does not...

This Public Expenditure Review (PER) presents a critical view of Guinea-Bissau's nascent democratic structure, one that does not ensure a clear separation of powers, which results in the need for the judiciary to exercise its lacking independence. Restoring budgetary discipline requires a series...

Despite high levels of per capita incomes and good social service provision, poverty remains a persistent problem in St. Kitts and Nevis. To improve competitiveness, restore rapid economic growth, and ensure its medium-term sustainability in the context of the currency union, the main challenges...

This Public Expenditure Review (PER) report carries an ex-post evaluation of a) budget performance in 2002/03 and, where information is available, for 2003/04 against fiscal objectives and spending priorities as set in the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation (ERS); and,...

This Public Expenditure Review (PER) is Uzbekistan's first one, prepared as part of the Bank's effort to establish a multiyear program of public expenditure work with the Government. The PER seeks to demonstrate how to improve the quality of the ongoing fiscal adjustment, and increase the...

This Report discusses the challenge of budget financing of core structural reforms, within a broader framework of fiscal management reforms in Russia. It argues that explicit financing of structural reforms is fully justifiable because these are the investments in the institutional...

This Public Expenditure Review (PER) analyzes the Government of Madagascar's efforts to meet the challenge of poverty reduction. The report first evaluates the macroeconomic and fiscal framework within which the Government is implementing its Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS). Secondly, reviews...

The thrust of the argument in this report is that, from the fiscal policy perspective, Colombia's long term economic performance will best benefit from: lower public sector debt levels; a lower size of public expenditure; a simpler and (almost) neutral tax structure; a closer linkage between...