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Belarus Public Expenditure Review : Enhancing Public Services in Times of AusterityThis report is the second volume of the
 programmatic Public Expenditure Review (PER) in Belarus. In
 2010 the Ministry of Finance requested that the Bank provide
 sequenced and targeted advice on the fiscal reform options
 across priority areas of the budget. Responding to this
 request, a programmatic PER was agreed upon. The first
 volume was delivered in November 2011 and focused on
 providing policy options for a sustainable pension system,
 better targeted social assistance and rationalization of
 energy and agricultural subsidies. The objective of this
 volume is to identify reform opportunities to enhance the
 quality of key public services in a fiscally constrained
 environment. Specifically, the second PER will analyze three
 key areas of the budget: intergovernmental fiscal relations
 and public spending in the education and health sectors.
 These three areas were chosen because they are significant
 from a fiscal perspective. More than half of government
 spending is channeled through sub-national governments,
 while education and health spending together account for a
 quarter of government spending (largely at the sub-national
 level). Beyond their fiscal importance, enhancing the
 quality and efficiency of spending in these sectors is
 critical for improving living standards and human capital in
 Belarus. However, since public finances are expected to
 remain tight for some years to come, expenditures, even in
 priority sectors such as health and education, will remain
 constrained. Therefore, the focus of this report is on the
 productivity of public spending. The primary thrust is to
 enhance the allocated and operational efficiency of
 resources to allow for improved quality of services and
 social outcomes while containing overall costs. The report
 also examines the impact of Belarus changing demographic
 profile, which will have a significant and lasting impact on
 demand for both health and education services. The report
 has four chapters. The first chapter reviews recent
 macro-economic and fiscal developments, and in particular
 the impact of the macro-economic crises on public finances
 and its implications for fiscal policy choices going
 forward. The second chapter examines intergovernmental
 fiscal relations and the fiscal incentives they create for
 sub-national governments. The third chapter looks at health
 sector outcomes and expenditures to identify opportunities
 for improved spending efficiency and sustainable health care
 financing. The fourth chapter is focused on resource
 allocation and utilization in the education sector to
 provide options for improved efficiency and effectiveness of
 education spending.
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Seychelles - Public Expenditure ReviewIn 2008, after many years of
 unsustainable fiscal policy and a distorted and overvalued
 foreign exchange regime, the Government of Seychelles
 embarked upon a bold economic reform program. This program
 aims to put the economy on a path toward macroeconomic
 stability, liberalize the economy and to allow the private
 sector to take over from the state as the driving force in
 the economy. Seychelles, a small open, middle-income island
 state with relatively low incidence of poverty and near full
 employment, faced acute economic difficulties in 2008 as a
 result of past economic management exacerbated by the rising
 global oil and food prices and the downturn in the global
 economy. This resulted in missed debt-service payments and
 the subsequent downgrading of its credit rating by standard
 and poor's. Faced with current debt service
 difficulties and a historically poor credit track record,
 the authorities responded quickly by adopting a
 comprehensive reform program supported by a second year
 stand by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund
 (IMF) and commencing negotiations with Paris club and other
 private and official creditors for debt restructuring. The
 government has embarked upon a comprehensive reform strategy
 aimed at restoring internal and external balances with the
 assistance of the international financial institutions and
 development partners. The reform program includes: (i) the
 complete liberalization of the exchange rate regime and
 float of the currency (which was introduced in November
 2008); and (ii) tightened fiscal policy, including improved
 targeting of the comprehensive social safety net and a
 privatization program to deal with the many state-owned
 enterprises. The focus of the public expenditure review
 (PER) reflects the fact that revisiting the role and
 functions of government lie at the heart of the economic
 reforms that need to take place in the next two years. This
 chapter provides a survey of recent developments,
 medium-term macroeconomic developments and their fiscal
 policy implications. Chapter two examines public expenditure
 trends and budget management issues. Chapters three, four,
 and five examine civil service reform, health care, and
 education issues respectively.
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Stabilization and Fiscal Empowerment : The Twin Challenges Facing India's States, Volume 1. Executive Summary and Main ReportIndia, home to more than one billion
 people, has experienced rapid growth over the past decade,
 averaging about six percent per year between 1992/93 and
 2003/04. The agenda backed in this report is one that
 receives widespread support from both the central and state
 governments in India. The fiscal stress of the late nineties
 gave rise to an intense state-level reform effort. Six years
 on, this report documents the many initiatives undertaken by
 the states to restore fiscal sustainability, and become more
 effective agents of development. It outlines successes,
 lessons learnt, and highlights further challenges, on both
 the expenditure side (chapter two) and the revenue side
 (chapter three). It also looks at the incentive framework
 within which the states operate (chapter four), and asks
 whether there is a feasible reform package that will take
 the states not only out of fiscal crisis, but strengthened
 to meet the development challenges which confront them. This
 chapter provides the context for what follows by outlining
 the role and increasingly divergent performance of the state
 governments (section two), and then in turn, the genesis of
 the fiscal crisis (section three), its developmental impact
 (section four), the reform response of the state and central
 governments (section five), and the reform challenges facing
 the states today (section six). Although associated with an
 increase in public spending, the fiscal crisis weakened the
 developmental and poverty impact of state governments,
 especially in the poorer states; it also called into
 question India's overall fiscal sustainability. This
 report is written to help share the lessons and
 success-stories to date, and to assist states and the
 central government in implementing the national agenda of
 state-level fiscal stabilization and empowerment. Given the
 low levels and the worrying recent trends in both the
 quantity of expenditure in priority expenditure areas, and
 the quality of expenditure across the board, there is an
 urgent need for expenditure restructuring to free up fiscal
 resources and for reforms to improve the quality of
 spending. Focus in this chapter on areas where expenditure
 can be cut rather than where it should be increased is not
 because we think there are no areas of underfunding.
 However, which particular areas should be increased, and by
 how much, will likely vary from state to state, depending on
 initial conditions, and identified priorities. The areas
 where savings can be made have much more in common across
 states, and so are the focuses of this report.