GOVERNMENT UNDERTAKES FIRST EVER PEFA ASSESSMENT

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning with facilitation of HIDA commissioned a team of experienced National and International consultants to undertake an independent evaluation of the Rwandan public financial management system using the PEFA framework. The expected output of the Assessment exercise will be a PFM Performance Report detailing out an analysis of the performance of the national PFM system against 28 indicators (28 for Government & 3 for donors) in the PEFA Performance Measurement Framework and recommendations for adjustments to be made in the Government’s PFM reform strategy.

Country Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) programmes are instruments that serve to strengthen recipient and donor ability to (i) assess the condition of country public expenditure, procurement and financial accountability systems, and (ii) develop a practical sequence of reforms and capacity building actions, in a manner that: encourages country ownership; reduces the transaction costs to countries; enhances donor harmonization; allows monitoring of progress of country PFM performance over time; better addresses developmental and fiduciary concerns and leads to improved impact of reforms.

The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment exercise therefore is an important input into the multi-agency partnership programme whose key players include the World Bank, IMF, EC, DFID, France, Norway and Switzerland. The final PEFA Assessment report will be ready by September 2007.