22 October 2008 - Since 2003 ECORYS is implementing the Public Finance Management Support Programme for the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Within this seven-year programme ECORYS provides training and on-the-job coaching in the area of Public Finance Management (PFM) to staff of 25 Netherlands Embassies in Africa, Asia, Latin-America and Eastern Europe. In addition, training is given to staff working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hague. The purpose of the training programme is to enhance the Ministry’s capacity in the area of PFM in order to improve the internal decision-making process and play a more active role in the external PFM dialogue.

Training modules have been developed on a large number of PFM-related topics such as the budget cycle; the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF); National Audit; fiscal space and scaling up of development aid; fiscal decentralisation; debt management; government revenue management; accountability and corruption; social, gender and participatory budgeting; Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and their costing; general and sectoral budget support; sector wide approaches (SWAPs); and donor co-ordination. Separate modules have been developed for budgeting in sectors such as education, health and environment. Diagnostic PFM tools are also included in the training programme, in particular the Public Expenditure Review (PER), Country Financial Accountability Assessment (CFAA) and Public Expenditure & Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment.

For each Embassy, one PFM expert is selected to provide training and on-the-job coaching for a period of three years (6-7 missions). The PFM expert develops country-specific training material, tailored to the needs of the Embassy. Other interested parties can also be invited for the training sessions, such as representatives of other donors and government officials of the partner country. In addition to the activities at the Embassies, PFM trainings are given in the Hague for headquarter staff.

Besides the PFM Support Programme, ECORYS has also provided various PFM training courses to other bilateral donors, including Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Austria. Moreover, for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs a PFM E-learning course has been developed and facilitated.

For more information, please contact:

John Zevenbergen
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