Burundi Public Expenditure Review : Strengthening Fiscal Resilience to Promote Government Effectiveness

Abstract

This public expenditure review is
 prepared by the World Bank, in close collaboration with the
 government of Burundi. This document highlights the
 significant progress made by Burundi in the recent past. The
 most notable recent achievement has been the improvement of
 indicators in the sectors of health, education and gender.
 In spite of such progress however, it is observed that
 economic growth remains weak and gross domestic product
 (GDP) rates are below expectations. Burundi is therefore
 vulnerable to different sources of shocks, especially
 external as a result of increasing prices of imported food
 and fuel, the price volatility of tea and coffee exports,
 climate change, and declining aid transfers. The main
 objective of the public expenditure review is to assist the
 government in its efforts to escape fragility by focusing on
 two important and complementary themes: 1) creating adequate
 fiscal space to reduce the impact of future shocks; and 2)
 using the available fiscal space to improve public
 expenditure management and promote government effectiveness.