19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets1 Politics and Processes of National Planning and Budgeting in Bangladesh How far are these tuned to realize MDGs? Sajjad Zohir presented at the Learning Event, July 2005, Rome

19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets2 Basics National Plans are normally of five years – the sixth one covers and the one with PRS is meant to be for The three years revolving investment plans are no more in vogue – while these are expected to be replaced by MTEF, the latter is yet to surface Annual budgets remain annual and are going through changes MDGs remain longer term goals to which political leaders expressed their commitments, and the countrys first MDG progress report came out in early 2005

19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets3 MDGs, Plans and Budgets MDGs Goals and Strategies Monitoring Indicators Budgets ? Plan/PRSP ? Or, do plans and budgets remain invariant to MDGs, and simply provide ex-post linkages?

19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets4 MDG Process in Bangladesh Goals Targets Indicators (data) - Workshop in February 2004 drawing up plan of action for preparing 1 st MDG progress report -13 Technical Working Groups, NGOs & CBOs were included - Facilitated by UN system, with ERD the focal point Targets Interventions Needs Assessment - BIDS supports to global MP initiative - Costing education using SHD model under the 1 st MDGR

19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets5 Planning Process Perspective Plan – participatory (during early 1990s) IPRSP – October 2003 to January divisional consultations on 12 sectors, 13 groups at national level –BRAC (a large NGO) was the event manager – WB, DfID and ADB were the key actors with contributions from consultants - with GED as the intended focal point End December early January 2004: Steering Committee for formulation of PRSP formed with Principal Secretary at the Prime Ministers Office as the Chairperson and Member, GED, as the Member-Secretary - the process was funded by GoB (GED was also named the national poverty focal point) 19 Thematic groups for the 19 ministries – while consultations on prioritizing activities were undertaken by GOB, reports were prepared by consultants Unlocking the Potentials: Poverty Reduction Strategies for Bangladesh is nearing completion

19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets6 The Annual Budget Responsibility of the Finance Division, Ministry of Finance – relies mostly on in-house capacity Redefined accounting categories – recurrent and capital expenditures – introduced since FY 2005 Budgets of 4 ministries brought under MTBF/MTEF since FY A total of 15 will be targeted in the next budget Revenue and Development wings merged so that a single person may look into all aspects of a ministry Budget accounts are now in the process of being poverty and gender sensitized – with supports from FMRP Currently the MoF is in the process of developing the monitoring indicators – intention is to have PC participate in outcome/output monitoring and leave input monitoring to the line ministries

19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets7 A Framework to Understand the Political Undercurrents Outcomes/ impacts at aggregate levels Output - includes impacts of sector-specific programs as well as total services delivered (may be divided further) Inputs (may be further divided) Subset of MDGs Strategies (subset of MDGs and some of the missing ones) Sector Plans / interventions Assessing resource needs and their costing GOB Budget/ MTEF/Needs Assessment GOB Planning Process Ministry of Planning Ministry of Finance Multilateral and bilateral development partners External Resource Division (ERD)

19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets8 Selected Observations on the Politics Multiple perspectives across development partners – Un and the non-UN The legacy of differences between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning – the imposed harmony with a single minister may not last long! Shortage of in-house capacity – across agencies Partial progress made in ensuring ownership by political leaders – yet a long way to go Voices of the people heard through consultations – but sustaining these at upper tiers of decision process prove difficult

19 July 2005Sajjad Zohir//MDG-Plans-Budgets9 Concluding Observations Politics of numbers, stakeholders interests and possible degeneration of numerical exercises on monitoring Reform of the budgetary process will most likely get completed – but establishing transparency may remain elusive – there may be gains by introducing elements of the MDG Needs Assessments in the exercise MDGs have contributed towards giving focus to national as well as donor plans – these need to be formally institutionalized Joint initiative from the two ministries is critical and the role of ERD needs revisiting At conceptual levels, the positions of UN and the non-UN development partners need to be harmonized