Tuesday, 15 February 2011

The Struggle for Democracy

The Struggle for Democracy

Issa Shivji 2003

The contemporary neo-liberal discourse has one fundamental blind spot. It treats the present as if the present has had no history. The discourse on democracy in Africa suffers from the same blindness. The struggle for democracy did not begin with the post-cold war introduction of multi-party system. The independence and liberation struggles for self-determination, beginning in the post-world war period, were eminently a struggle for democracy. Neither formal independence nor the victory of armed liberation movements marked the end of democratic struggles. They continued, albeit in different forms.

The struggle for democracy is primarily a political struggle on the form of governance, thus involving the reconstitution of the state. No one claims that democracy means and aims at social emancipation. Rather it is located on the terrain of political liberalism so, at best, creating conditions for the emancipatory project. This is important to emphasize in the light of the hegemony of neo-liberal discourse which tends to emasculate democracy of its social and historical dimensions and present it as an ultimate nirvana.

On these premises, although liberation was no doubt a democratic struggle, its articulation as a struggle for liberation gave democracy a social dimension, which the neo-liberal ideology eschews and avoids. In turn, the tension between political democracy and social emancipation constantly beleaguered the liberation and independence movements. This tension inevitably got enmeshed in the cold-war ideological confrontation between the two power blocks under respective superpowers. The cold war confrontation not only “disfigured” the liberation and democratic discourse in Africa, it turned the newly and fledging independent states into pawns, and the continent into a chessboard, of proxy hot wars. The consequences of those hot wars have been devastating for the continent. Today’s failed states were once upon a time the darlings or demons – depending on the point of view you take – of global hegemonic powers.

Military coups became the order of the day in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The targets were nationalist regimes, which wanted to carve out an independent space and give their sovereignty a modicum of reality. Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by the American and Belgium manipulation and involvement (Blum 1986, 174). A surrogate regime of Mobutu was put in place.

The Congo, and its people, including, neighboring states in Central Africa have since seen no peace. Kwame Nkrumah, who early realized the importance of continental unity and the curse of imperial exploitation through multinationals, was overthrown in a CIA engineered coup (ibid., 223). That country too has not totally regained stability and development since.

Between January 1956 and the end of 1985 there were sixty successful coups in Africa, that is, an average of two every year (Hutchful 1991, 183). In 1966 alone there were eight military coup d’etat and by 1986, out of some 50 African states, only 18 were under civilian rule (Nyong’o 1998, 78). Behind virtually every coup was the hand of one or the other imperial power, and, more often than not, the US. Overthrowing nationalist regimes and installing tyrannical dictatorships was, then, a “fair game” for today’s champions of democracy and “good governance”!

The regimes, which for various reasons, escaped the fate of military take-over inevitably turned authoritarian one-party states under some or the other form of developmentalist rhetoric (see, generally, Shivji 1986). The one-party rule and curbing of individual freedoms was presented as a trade-off between democracy and development. Even that trade-off did not work. Unlike a Cuba in the socialist sphere or a South Korea in the capitalist sphere, none of the African states was able to wrench itself free of the neo-colonial economic structures imposed by colonialism and perpetuated by the imperial world market.

By the end of 1970s, many African states, regardless of the nature of their states or their economic policies or ideological orientation, found themselves in deep economic crisis with high debts, low or negative growth rates, hyper inflation and massive transfers of surpluses through various ways, to the developed North.

Meanwhile, the North, the US and Europe, was smarting under Reaganite and Thatcherite economics and politics (see Hobsbwam 1994, ch. 8). The general swing towards the right gripped even the social democratic northern Europe. The humiliating defeat in Vietnam, the newly-found power of the oil-producing countries in OPEC and the 1979 Iranian revolution dealt a heavy body blow to the hegemony of imperialism, in particular to the United States. Thus the Second Cold War in which the Reagan-Thatcher neo-liberal axis not only further fuelled the fires of ideological warriorism but also rabid anti-Third Worldism, which was directed equally against nationalist and self-identified socialist regimes (Hobsbawm ibid., 247 et. seq.) .The combination of economic crisis at home and the rise of neo-liberalism globally made many an African country a ready victim of the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programmes or SAPs. SAP came with its stringent conditionalties – liberalization of markets, balancing of budgets, removal of subsidies, so-called cost-sharing in the provision of social services, etc.. African states, including the most nationalist among them like Tanzania, were in no position to resist. They eventually gave in, wreaking havoc in the already fragile economies on the one hand, and the welfare of the most disadvantaged of their people, on the other (Mwanza ed., 1992). Import-substitution industrialization, which had been one of the developmental planks of the nationalist period, was virtually wiped out as industry after industry was bankrupted, unable to withstand the imports of cheap goods. Agriculture stagnated. There was little the governments could do beyond exhorting the peasants to work harder. Social indicators like education, health, water and electricity began to decline. In short, SAPs sapped whatever vitality there was in the fragile African economies (see, generally, Gibbon ed. 1993, Mongula 1994, Mamdani 1994). Even the moderate social achievements of the nationalist period in education, health, and water. were swept away.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, followed by the first Gulf War, marked another phase in the political come-back of imperial hegemony, or, what Furedi has called, the ‘moral rehabilitation of imperialism’ (Furedi 1994). If in SAPs imperial powers and the IFIs had flexed and applied their economic muscles, in the post-cold war “democracy” crusade, they aggressively and uncompromisingly applied their political muscles. Political conditionalities were added to economic conditionalities, while economic conditionalities were upgraded to include privatization of not only parastatals but also services – water, electricity, communication, education, etc. Multi-party democracy, human rights, “good governance”, poverty reduction became the buzz words of the discourse, now renamed, “policy dialogues”.

Hegemonic ideologies and dominant elites were not without their critiques. Nationalism of the middle class which came to power on the morrow of independence was severely rebuked by Frantz Fanon (.1963). Fanon roared and young intellectuals echoed him all over the continent.

The national middle class which takes over power at the end of the colonial regime is an under-developed middle class. It has practically no economic power, and in any case it is in no way commensurate with the bourgeoisie of the mother country which it hopes to replace. (pp. 119-120)

It follows the Western bourgeoisie along its path of negation and decadence without ever having emulated it in its first stages of exploration and invention, stages which are an acquisition of that Western bourgeoisie whatever the circumstances. In its beginnings, the national bourgeoisie of the colonial countries identifies itself with the decadence of the bourgeoisie of the West. We need not think that it is jumping ahead; it is in fact beginning at the end. It is already senile before it has come to know the petulance, the fearlessness or the will to succeed of youth. (p.123)

Developmentalism, or, what was called socialism in some places, found its critiques in theories of dependency and underdevelopment. Samir Amin (1990), Walter Rodney (1972), the young intellectuals of the Dar Campus, all vigorously debated with the mainstream American paradigms of political science centering around modernization and nation-building (Cliffe and Saul eds., 1973). . Multi-party and liberal democracy immediately elicited even a more passionate search for ‘real’democracy. A spate of publications in the 1980s on popular struggles and social movements countering top-down civil society approaches became popular for a while but was not sustained (Nyong’o ed. 1987). SAPs too were subjected to academic research and intellectual scrutiny, though, more often than not, by this time, home-grown critiques were beginning to wear thin (Mwanza ed., op.cit., 1992, Gibbon ed., op.cit.) . The neo-liberal discourse, if it deserves that respectability, appears much more dominant today. Consultancy, the so-called policy-dialogues, NGOs and “human rights” have sucked in radical intelligentsia giving charlatans and policy-advisers the intellectual field-day. But to the credit of African radicalism, the apparent ‘intellectual’ hegemony is more a pretence than a reality. A few critiques have continued to challenge it, albeit ignored, at worst, or acknowledged as tokens, at best.

But the matter of social change and transformation is not simply one of discourse. The struggle for democracy is ultimately rooted in the life-conditions of the people. In the debates of the 60s and 70s, radical political economy, with its concepts of class and modes of production, placed on the centre stage the real struggles of popular classes and oppressed masses, notwithstanding that it remained an elite, and very often an elitist project. People were posited as the agency and drivers of change, as opposed to the state. The neo-liberal discourse is bereft of any such theoretical rigour or political vision. Popular classes and masses have been turned into a helpless lump of poor waiting with bowls in their hand to receive “poverty reduction funds” while the so-called private sector is paraded as the ‘locomotive’ of development. Curiously, the dialectic opposite of ‘the poor’ is not ‘the rich’ but ‘the donors’! The analytical question is not ‘how-the- poor-became-poor and continue to be so’, but rather ‘how many are poor, moderately poor, very poor’ and how long would it take to eradicate poverty? As I said before, the neo-liberal discourse is not only blind to history but utterly oblivious of agency of change. It is par excellence the ideology , nay, the propaganda of, for and by the vested interests of the status quo. And it is on this ahistorical and asocial terrain that the discourse on governance, (that is “good governance” and “bad governance”) is constructed.

Theoretical Treatment of Governance

What is the conceptual status of ‘good governance’? At the minimum, liberal and radical paradigms would agree that governance refers to the institutions and relations to do with political power: the way political power is exercised and legitimized. In other words, governance is constructed primarily on the terrain of power. Thus articulated, the values and principles by which governance would be judged and characterized relate to forms of governance, such as democratic governance or authoritarian governance or dictatorial governance. The “good governance” discourse, however, does not admit of the relationships of power. Rather it presents itself as a moral paradigm, distinguishing between the good, the bad and the evil. What is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ governance thus turns out to be a moral judgment, on the one hand, and relativist and subjectivist, on the other. The result, I want to suggest, is that ‘good governance’ has no conceptual or theoretical value in understanding a phenomenon with a view to change it. Rather, it is, at best, a propagandist tool easily manipulatable by whoever happens to wield power. And this is exactly how it has been deployed in the dominant, neo-liberal discourse.

One of the political conditionalities imposed on African governments by the IFIs and the “donor-community” is ‘good governance’. This has become a flexible tool in the hands of global hegemonies to undermine the sovereignty of African nations and the struggle for democracy of the African people. For, the people are no longer the agency of change but rather the victims of “bad governance” to be delivered or redeemed by the erstwhile donor-community. The instrument of this deliverance is supposedly the policies and political conditions – multi-party, governance commissions – which must be put in place for a state to qualify to receive ‘aid’. The recipients on their part ‘reform’ their governance structures, with aid and technical assistance from the same ‘donor-community’, to satisfy their, what these days are called, “partners”. The example from my country, which is far more subtle, and relatively more independent in its relationship with ‘partners’, illustrates the point.

In Tanzania, we have first a ministry, headed by a full-fledged minister, of good governance. Then, through donor pressure, the Government was obliged to establish a Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance with aid from the Danish government. Among the first things was to build a gargantuan structure to house the Commission and establish the infrastructure at a cost of over 1.5 billion shs. (or roughly 1.5 million US$). (The people of Tanzania would never know the exact amount nor the conditions of the contract. It is secret from them. The Danish people would perhaps be in a better position to know how their government promotes “good governance” in Tanzania.) Then another bureaucratic structure of civil servants headed by seven commissioners is set up drawing usual salaries and numerous allowances.

Besides a minister of good governance and a commission, there was another ‘benefit’ the Government received as part of ‘good governance’ assistance. A couple of years ago, the distinguished Finnish diplomat, Martin Althassari, paid visits to Tanzania as an ‘advisor to the President’ on good governance, sponsored by the World Bank! Presumbaly, he made a report to the President (or the World Bank, who knows?) after consulting civil servants, a sprinkling of NGO representatives, academics, private sector etc., as is the consultants’ custom these days. How this consultancy represents the struggle of the people of Tanzania to construct a democratic state and polity, I cannot tell. And this is because, we are not even sure if “good governance” means the same thing as democratic governance of, for and by the people of Tanzania! After all they were never consulted on the appointment of the advisor to their president!

What about the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance?

The Commission, among other things, receives complaints about violation of human rights and abuse of power and investigates the same. This is precisely the kind of work supposed to be done by the mainstream judiciary and the former Permanent Commission of Inquiry. The Permanent Commission was set up in the middle sixties modeled on Scandinavian Ombudsman to inquire into abuse of power by state officials and report to the President. True, both the judiciary and the Permanent Commission had a lot of flaws. People have had lots of criticisms and grievances against these institutions and expressed them, whenever they got an opportunity, or, whenever, they could snatch such opportunities. Both institutions cried out for reforms. Both required the political vision, will and resources for reform based on the grievances of the people. If the reforms were internally generated and grounded in the struggle and demands of the people, they would have almost certainly taken a very different trajectory. For example, the judiciary, in particular the lower judiciary, could be improved significantly by directing resources to train judicial personnel, providing reasonable benefits to the staff, such as housing, transport etc., and by innovative structures to institutionalize people’s participation in judicial processes. Yet, that is not how “good governance” reforms are conceived. Structures parallel to existing ones are put up as a result of donor-pressure. The desirability and viability of such structures is hardly assessed within the countries concerned. One of the effects of setting up such structures is to undermine time-tested traditional state structures. Worse, reforms from the top instigated by donor conditionalities undermine the right of the people themselves to struggle for and conceive their own institutional reforms and set their own priorities. Furthermore, needless to mention, such top-down reforms conceived, prioritised and financed by the erstwhile IFIs and donors undermine the very basis of democratic governance, that is, accountability to the people. The “governors” are accountable to the “donors” and their consultants and advisors on “good governance” rather than the people. Where is then the so-called democracy, trumpeted so much, and in whose name, political power seeks legitimacy?

No wonder, in my own country, which perhaps is not the worst example in Africa of utter submission to hegemonic powers, the President cites the acclamation he receives from IFIs (not his own people) as an example of the success of his policies.

One cannot help being cynical about the whole good governance project. This is not to say that Tanzania, like many other African and non-African countries, including some in the North, do not require reform of their governance structure. But the point is what kind of reforms, in whose interest and conceived and implemented by whom. Democratic reforms, let it be said for the umpteenth time, is the prerogative of the people. It is the exercise of their sovereignty and their right to self-determination. That is what the struggle for independence and liberation was all about. It was the struggle of the African people to reclaim their humanity and dignity and the right to think for themselves and to chart their destiny. This was, and is, precisely the essence of anti-imperialist struggles. It follows, therefore, that economic and political conditionalities, including those on good governance, are an expression of the reassertion of imperial domination, however it may be labeled.

Alternative to Good Governance

What I have presented so far may sound conspiratorial and one-sided. I am not a believer in conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, it remains a historical and contemporary truism that global hegemonic power, or, imperialism, is an anti-thesis of democracy. Together with local reactionary classes and groups, imperial powers have played a major role in suppressing democratic struggles of the people (Shivji 2002a). Neo-liberal politics, thrust down the throats of African people, is a corollary of the economic policies of the Structural Adjustment Programmes based on the Washington Consensus, mindlessly propagated and imposed by the World Bank and IMF. SAPs have wreaked havoc in the third world, particularly African economies. Serious studies testify to this. I need not cite any suspect sources in support. Suffice to quote the former Chief Economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz:

The application of mistaken economic theories would not be such a problem if the end of first colonialism and then communism had not given the IMF and the World Bank the opportunity to greatly expand their respective original mandates, to vastly extend their reach. Today these institutions have become dominant players in the world economy. Not only countries seeking their help but also seeking their “seal of approval” so that they can better access international capital must follow their economic prescriptions, prescriptions which reflect their free market ideologies and theories.

The result for many people has been poverty and for many countries social and political chaos. The IMF has made mistakes in all the areas it has been involved in: development, crisis management, and in countries making the transition from communism to capitalism. Structural adjustment programs did not bring sustained growth even to those, like Bolivia, that adhered to its strictures; in many countries excessive austerity stifled growth; … (pp.17-18)

Such systemic failures can hardly be described as “mistakes”. Rather, as the author himself observes elsewhere, they are the result of the interests that drive these institutions: ‘… the policies of the international economic institutions are all too often closely aligned with the commercial and financial interests of those advanced industrial countries.’ (ibid., 19-20) So, ultimately, we are not dealing with mistaken policies or conspiracy, but rather with the systematic forces reflecting the unequal relationships of the global system.

I should perhaps also clarify another point. In spite of what looks like the omnipresent and omnipotent global power, neither the neo-liberal discourse nor the imperial domination have been accepted without intellectual and practical resistance of the people. While it is true that we are generally in the trough of the revolution, and democratic and national liberation struggles have been aborted and pre-empted, African intellectuals have continued to pose alternative discourses based on bottom-up struggles and aspirations of their people. Liberal politics have been countered by social democratic politics and democracy by ‘new democracy’. In a summing up of a debate on democracy, Archie Mafeje, chiding his fellow African intellectuals for parroting liberal democracy, succinctly observed:

Regarding the present conditions in Africa, this can refer only to two things: first, the extent to which the people’s will enters decisions which affect their life chances, and, second, the extent to which their means of livelihood are guaranteed. In political terms the first demand does not suggest capture of ‘state power’ by the people (workers and peasants) but it does imply ascendancy to state power by a national democratic alliance in which the popular classes hold the balance of power. The second demand implies equitable (not equal) distribution of resources. Neither liberal democracy, imposed ‘multi-partyism’ nor ‘market forces’ can guarantee these two conditions. It transpires, therefore, that the issue is neither liberal democracy nor ‘compradorial’ democracy but social democracy. (in Chole & Jibrin, eds. 1995, 26).

In an article written in the late 1990s, I argued that it was ‘new democracy’ that was on the African agenda (Shivji 2000). The three critical elements of new democracy are popular livelihoods, popular power and popular participation. The term popular is meant to convey three meanings.

First, popular is used in the sense of being anti-imperialist. This is well captured in the people’s own perception of what is called Second Independence. Given the continued and even more blatant imperialist domination that I have described, the new democratic consensus cannot be constructed without addressing the issue of liberation from imperialism, which is the anti-thesis of both ‘national’ and ‘democratic’. But at the same time the term ‘popular’ is used to transcend the limits of the term ‘national’. It is meant to highlight the limits of the first (national) independence which took the form of anti-colonialism. The independence or first liberation consisted in constituting state sovereignty; the core of the second liberation consists in resolving the issue of people’s sovereignty.

The second meaning in which popular is used refers to the social basis of the project. The social core of the new consensus has to be popular classes, i.e. a popular bloc of classes. While its exact composition will of course differ, in many African countries the land based producer classes and the urban poor together with lower middle classes would constitute the ‘masses’. This is where, to use Lenin’s phrase, ‘serious politics begin’ - ‘not where there are thousands, but where there are millions’ (quoted in Carr 1961, 50).

The third meaning that I attach to popular is in the sense of popular perceptions, custom, culture and consciousness. Custom and culture, not in the vulgar sense of atrophied or unchanging tradition but rather in the sense of a living terrain of struggles where the old and the new, the progressive and the reactionary, jostle and struggle to attain hegemony. Needless to say that culture and traditions constitute one of the most important ideological fronts (albeit neglected in our social science discourses). This is where, in the words of Raymond Williams, the dominant culture either tries to harmonize or demonize the cultures of resistance. (See also Wamba 1991)

Such alternative discourses and struggles of the people have no doubt been aborted and pre-empted by the neo-liberal rhetoric. This is only a passing phenomenon, though. So long as neo-liberal politics and economics are incapable of addressing the real life-conditions of the African people, they have little legitimacy. The “good governance” discourse thus turns out to be profoundly a discourse of domination rather than that of liberation and democracy.

Conclusion: The Intellectual Tasks Ahead.

It is now time to conclude. In this, rather long-winded presentation, I have tried to argue that the great democratic struggles of the African people expressed in their independence and national liberation movements remain incomplete. The so-called democracy constructed on ahistorical and asocial paradigms of neo-liberalism are an expression of renewed imperial onslaught, which is profoundly anti-democratic. It may as well proclaim: “Democracy is dead. Long live democracy.” The tasks of committed intellectuals is to recognize the new imperialism called globalization and articulate the ideologies of resistance expressed in popular struggles (see, Shivji 2002b). African intellectuals must join issue with neo-liberalists and expose the paucity of concepts like “good governance”.

The post-cold war renewal of imperialism is even more ferocious than classical colonialism. It is led by a dangerous and unrestrained super-power undermining the very basis of democracy, the right of the peoples to self-determination, that is, their right to think for themselves. It is playing god by deciding for the rest of the world, what is good and what is evil, who is a friend and who is a foe, who are people and who are non-people.

Commending Tanzania for its new foreign policy based on ‘economic diplomacy’, the US Ambassador to the country patronizingly told the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs:

The liberation diplomacy of the past, when alliances with socialist nations were paramount and so-called Third World Solidarity dominated foreign policy, must give way to a more realistic approach to dealing with your true friends – those who are working to lift you into the 21st century where poverty is not acceptable and disease must be conquered. (The Guardian, 29th July, 2003)

Here is an imposed friendship! During the nationalist phase, propounding his non-aligned policy Nyerere could say, ‘We shall not allow our friends to choose enemies for us’. The current African leaders dare not even whisper so. But no people can accept to live under bondage for ever. Empires have come and gone. This too will go. Thirty years ago, Mwalimu Nyerere, talking about apartheid South Africa said, and this remains a fitting reply to all arrogant super powers:

Humanity has already passed through many phases since man began his evolutionary journey. And nature shows us that not all life evolves in the same way. The chimpanzees - to whom once we were very near - got on to the wrong evolutionary path and they got stuck. And there were other species which became extinct; their teeth were so big, or their bodies so heavy, that they could not adapt to changing circumstances and they died out.

I am convinced that, in the history of the human race, imperialists and racialists will also become extinct. They are now very powerful. But they are a very primitive animal. The only difference between them and these other extinct creatures is that their teeth and claws are more elaborate and cause much greater harm - we can see this even now in the terrible use of napalm in Vietnam. But failure to co-operate together is a mark of bestiality; it is not a characteristic of humanity.

Imperialists and racialists will go. Vorster, and all like him, will come to an end. Every racialist in the world is an animal of some kind or the other, and all are kinds that have no future. Eventually they will become extinct.

Africa must refuse to be humiliated, exploited, and pushed around. And with the same determination we must refuse to humiliate, exploit, or push others around. We must act, not just say words. (Nyerere 1973, 371).

References

Amin, S., 1990, Maldevelopment: Anatomy of a Global Failure, London: Zed.

Blum, W., 1986, The CIA: a forgotten history, London: Zed Books.

Carr, E., 1961, What is History, London: Penguin.

Chole, E. & Jibrin, I., eds. 1995, Democratisation Processes in Africa: Problems and Prospects, Dakar: CODESRIA.

Cliffe, L. & Saul, J., eds. 1973, Socialism in Tanzania: An Interdisciplinary Reader, Nairobi, East African Publishing House.

Fanon, F., 1963, The Wretched of the Earth, London: Penguin.

Furedi, F., 1994, The New Ideology of Imperialism, London: Pluto.

Gibbon, P. ed., 1993, Social Change and Economic Reform in Africa, Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.

Hobsbwam, E., 1994, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991, London: Michael Joseph.

Hutchful, E., 1991, ‘Reconstructing Political Systems: Militarism and Constitutionalism,’ in Shivji, I. G., ed. State and Constitutionalism: An African Debate on Democracy, Harare: SAPES.

Mafeje, A., 1995, ‘Theory of Democracy and the African Discourse: Breaking Bread with my Fellow-travellers’, in Chole and Jibrin, eds., op. cit.

Mamdani, M., 1994, ‘A Critical Analysis of the IMF Programme in Uganda’, in Ulf Himmerlstrand et. al., eds.

Mongula, B. S., 1994, ‘Development Theory and Changing Trends in Sub-Saharan African Economies, 1960-89’, in Ulf Himmelstrand, Kabiru Kinyanjui & Edward Mburugu, eds., African Perspectives on Development: Controversies, Dilemmas and Openings, Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota.

Mwanza, A. M., ed., 1992, Structural Adjustment Programmes in SADC: Experiences and Lessons from Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Harare: SAPES.

Nyerere, J., 1973, Freedom and Development: A Selection from Writings and Speeches, London: Oxford.

Nyong’o, P. A., 1998, ‘Review and Critique of Current Development Strategies in Africa’, in K. Kibwana, ed., Constitutional Law and Policies in Africa: A Case Study of Kenya, Nairobi: Faculty of Law, University of Nairobi.

Nyong’o, P. A., ed., 1987, Popular Struggles for Democracy in Africa, London: Zed.

Rodney, W., 1972, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House.

Shivji, I. G., 2000, ‘Critical Elements of a New Democratic Consensus in Africa’, in Othman, H. & Halfani, M., eds. Reflections on Leadership in Africa: Forty Years after Independence, Brussels: VYB University Press.

Shivji, I. G., 2002a, ‘Is Might a Right in International Human Rights? Notes on Imperial Assault on the Right of Peoples to Self-determination’ in Sifuni E. Mchome ed., Taking Stock of Human Rights Situation in Africa, Dar es Salaam: Faculty of Law, University of Dar es Salaam.

Shivji, I. G., 2002b, ‘Globalisation and Popular Resistance’, in Semboja, J. et. al., eds. Local Perspectives on Globalisation: The African Case, Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota.

Shivji, I. G., ed. 1986, The State and the Working People in Tanzania, Dakar: CODESRIA.

Stiglitz, J. E., 2002, Globalization and its Discontents, New York: W.W. Norton.

Wamba-dia-Wamba, E., 1991, ‘Some Remarks on Culture, Development and Revolution in Africa’, Journal of Historical Sociology 4:3:219-35.

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

International Journal of Governmental Financial Management

The latest issue of the International Journal of Governmental Financial Management is now available.

In the first paper of this issue, Frans van Schaik considers the issue of materiality in government auditing in the context of the development of public sector specific guidance on this subject by INTOSAI, the international body for public sector external auditors, based on the private sector standards. The paper finds significant evidence for the materiality level in the public sector to be different to that in the private sector, despite this evidence, such differences are not clearly documented in the auditing standard. In the process, van Schaik reviews the key considerations for materiality for public sector auditors.

In our second paper, Doug Hadden provides a case study of public financial management reforms in Kosovo. This post-conflict country has sequenced legal reform, improved governance, and achieved international public financial management standards under difficult conditions. Hadden points out that there are numerous lessons in the Kosovo experience linking reform to context that can be leveraged by governments around the world.

Rocky J. Dwyer argues that a credible demonstration of public sector impacts depends on understanding the distinction between inputs, outputs, outcomes and indicators. The first aim of his paper is to provide an enhanced understanding of the current literature, reports and documentation on estimating the impacts and results of government programming and policies. Secondly, he shares the definitions and guidelines used to demonstrate economic impacts. Finally, he presents current best practices in measuring incremental impacts. All of which, Dwyer contends, provides new ways of approaching measurement and accountability that are more effective, strategic, comprehensive and credible to the public.

Pawan Adhikari and Frode Mellemvik argue in their paper that developing countries have few alternatives other than to accept the rules and standards developed and prescribed by international standard setters, so as to ensure external legitimacy and financial support. Their paper explores Nepal’s move towards the implementation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). This study shows an interesting case of how public sector accounting in developing countries is being influenced by international organizations, particularly the World Bank and professional accounting institutions. However, it is not clear from this study that such an approach is ensuring that public financial management reforms are focussed on the key areas in Nepal.

Similarly, in our penultimate article, Caroline Aggestam considers the need to adopt a project management perspective with the adoption of accrual based IPSAS.

Moving from cash or modified accrual based accounting to full accrual accounting under International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) can be a challenging endeavor. Ensuring proper convergence to accrual based IPSAS entails not only a vast amount of work in the accounting arena of any given public sector entity or government but also often major changes in business processes and practices. By using a project management approach in adopting IPSAS an organization/government can make certain that, for example: the project gets necessary support from top management; a sound governance structure is put in place; communication and training plans are developed and managed; new accounting policies are written; and necessary alignment of business processes will take place in a timely manner.

In the final paper for this issue, Rizvana Zameeruddin considers new guidance on accounting and financial reporting for intangible assets from the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) in the USA. Zameeruddin considers that when Statement 51 is appropriately used in conjunction with existing guidance, a more faithful representation of the services capacity of intangible assets, particularly in the areas of recognition, initial measurement, and amortization results. This should improve financial reporting by clarifying the classification of intangibles as capital assets and establishing guidance for internally generated intangibles.

The editors welcome comments on these papers and suggestions for future issues of the Journal. Each of these papers and previous issues of International Journal of Governmental Financial Management are available for free download from:

www.icgfm.org/digest.htm

Friday, 17 September 2010

What public financial management reforms actually work?


For over a decade the World Bank, followed by the other donors, has been pushing a standard reform agenda for public financial management. This has usually involved large scale reforms such as the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), an Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS), decentralisation and so on. But where is the evidence that this approach to public financial management reform actually works – especially in the ultimate goal of reducing poverty?
Two important studies issued earlier this year have reviewed the experience across Africa and the Middle East, at least in terms of assessments of public financial management against the PEFA framework.
Mat Andrews, of the Kennedy School of Governance, finds “alarmingly similar reforms” across Sub-Saharan Africa and appeals for “less similarity of reforms and more context appropriateness”. A World Bank study of the Middle East and North Africa finds that medium term sector strategies (MTEF) and large information technology projects (IFMIS) are amongst the most challenging public financial management reforms.
It is to be hoped that the donor community will learn the lessons of this research. The least we can expect is that only reforms which have been proved to be successful in a similar environment are promoted. Developing countries need to learn from the experience of others and not just repeat their mistakes. Reform of public financial management has consisted too much of solutions in search of a problem. We need far more analysis and understanding of individual public financial management systems and processes. We need less dependence on consultants and more on the expert knowledge of the local public financial management practitioners.
Further details of the results of the two surveys are provided below.
How Far Have Public Financial Management Reforms Come in Africa?
Mat Andrews (2010) Harvard: Kennedy School of Governance
web.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=548
How strong has African public financial management become? How do African public financial management systems now facilitate effective public financial management? Where are the next challenges and how can they be met?
This paper addresses these questions, using PEFA analyses to identify central themes of the continent’s recent public financial management story. The themes emerge from the quantitative and qualitative data from the 31 central government PEFAs completed prior to mid-2008 in Sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank (2010) study reviewed above similarly uses the results of PEFA analyses for 10 countries in North Africa and the Middle East.
Some of the key findings of this research are:
“Three themes are identified across the process areas in African public financial management systems:
(i) Budgets are made better than they are executed;
(ii) Practice lags behind the creation of processes and laws; and
(iii) Actor concentration pays:
The first theme relates the observation that budget preparation processes are comparatively stronger than budget execution and oversight processes across all African countries. In public financial management jargon, this is commonly presented as ‘upstream processes are stronger than downstream processes’.
The second theme is more nuanced, showing across all process areas that African public financial management systems generally suffer from an implementation deficit—laws and processes may be in place but seldom affect actual behavior. The theme reflects a new institutional differentiation between de jure and de facto reform and is shown in the words of one recent diagnostic, “Legislation and procedures have been improved ... [but] implementation has not yet been achieved.”
The third theme offers even more specificity, suggesting that processes are stronger when narrower, concentrated sets of actors are involved in implementation. Processes are weaker where they involve multiple players, especially outside of central public financial management entities like the budget department or treasury.” (page 1)
“Themes also arise in explaining why countries fall into different leagues. A range of factors are seen to influence the quality of public financial management systems and outcomes, presented as five major themes:
· Growing economies have stronger public financial management.
· Stability delivers PFM progress, although there may be a peculiar ‘starting from scratch’ dividend for countries enjoying post conflict stability.
· States with larger domestic, non-mineral income sources have stronger public financial management.
· Longer periods of broad reform commitment foster public financial management progress.
· And, Colonial heritage matters (maybe).” (page 3)
On the final of the above points, Andrews says that this is certainly true for external audit and may also be true for internal audit.
The paper also questions whether “context is taken seriously in reform design?” (page 42). The paper identifies five leagues in terms of the quality of public financial management (at least shown by the PEFA reports). “The leagues were shown to be significantly different. However, they have alarmingly similar reforms in place” (page 44). So, for example, of the 31 countries reviewed an MTEF was implemented in 28 countries, programme budgeting in 25 and an IFMIS in 20. All the countries had introduced commitment controls, COFOG analysis of expenditure, a single treasury account and IPSAS.
As a result of the study, Andrews makes the following three recommendations for public financial management reform:
· there should be less focus on technicalities and more on reform ‘space’

· there should be less concentration and more coverage

· there should be less similarity of reforms and more context appropriateness.
Public Financial Management Reform in the Middle East and North Africa: An Overview of Regional Experience
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/MENAEXT/0,,contentMDK:22634529~pagePK:146736~piPK:226340~theSitePK:256299,00.html
This World Bank survey reviews the experience of public financial management reform across the Middle East and North Africa. This includes a review of the results for PEFA reviews for 10 countries across the region.
One of the most important functions governments perform is that of mobilizing and deploying financial resources to achieve their objectives. The way in which this money is spent has huge implications for their broader development trajectory.
For governments to perform their spending function well, their public financial management (PFM) practices should meet certain well-established criteria
Government spending should be affordable, in that it takes place within a framework that ensures expenditure is consistent with monetary and fiscal policy objectives and sustainable in the long term.
Governments should optimize the allocation of public resources between different sectors and expenditure categories in a way that reflects their policy priorities, including sustainable growth as well as human and social development.
Such expenditure should be efficient, in that it maximizes output for a given set of inputs, and effective, in that it supports the successful realization of the government’s goals.
It should also be transparent; and regular, that is conducted in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations; and undertaken with appropriate checks and balances to ensure financial probity.
While such objectives are relatively straightforward, their realization can be challenging. The study provides 10 lessons or promising practices from the experience in the region:
· Know the Value—and Limitations—of Political Economy Analysis
· PFM Reform as Means and Not Ends
· Context Matters, so Swim with the Current
· The Wisdom of “Muddling Through”—Grand Strategy versus Incremental
· Establish Basic Systems before Contemplating More Advanced Reforms
· When Possible, Keep Reforms Quick, Simple and Mutually Reinforcing
· Be Wary of Large Financial Management Information Systems
· Internal Challenges: Leadership, Coordination, Skills and Incentives
· External Stakeholders—Useful, but Don’t Count on Them
· Lessons for Donors: Be More Strategic, Selective, Modest and Flexible.
In many countries in the Middle East and North Africa, public financial management reforms have been on the agenda for a decade or more. This report seeks to reflect upon this experience to date and better understand the nature of the public financial management challenges confronting these countries.
A summary of the successful and challenging public financial management reforms in the region is provided by the following table (page 35):
Successful PFM Reforms
Mixed
Challenging PFM Reforms
Improving budget classification
• Improving budget transparency
• Reforms in tax and customs
Enhance macro-fiscal capacity
• Budget integration
• Streamlining ex-ante control
processes
• Commitment control
• Payroll management
• Treasury operations
• Reform of accounting systems
• Internal and external audit
Medium term sector strategies
• Improving budget scope and
coverage
• Introducing performance into the
budget
• Procurement reforms
• Large information technology
projects

This study surveys these reforms across ten Arab countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, the West Bank and Gaza and Yemen. They were selected partly because they are places where the World Bank has been heavily engaged on public financial management issues and been able to gather a wealth of comparative information.

They also represent an interesting cross-section of administrative traditions and different levels of development. Taken together, these countries are home to over two thirds of MENA’s population and nearly one third of its GDP. Many of the findings from this analysis will be of relevance to other MENA countries as well.

Wednesday, 11 August 2010

Public Audit in Francophone Africa – the complementary roles of the General State Inspectorate and the Court of Accounts

The Inspection générale d’Etat is an African innovation, essentially presidential, which over turns generally accepted paradigms, especially of experts from parliamentary countries or at least non-presidential, which is significantly different from arrangements which exist elsewhere. (Gueye 2007: 199)


Introduction

In most French speaking African countries there is a General State Inspectorate (usually called an Inspection générale d’Etat, but other terms are used). This type of institution evolved in post-colonial Africa and so has no parallels in France, Canada or other developed French speaking countries. Many public financial management advisors consider the General State Inspectorate to be an internal audit institution and most PEFA reports make this assumption. However, in around a third of Francophone African countries the General State Inspectorate is the Supreme Audit Institution and the member of INTOSAI for the country.

It has been argued that General State Inspectorates should not be considered as external auditors or supreme audit institutions as they are part of the executive. In contrast the Courts of Accounts (Cour des comptes) are claimed to be outside and functionally independent of the executive. General State Inspectorates are usually appointed by the president or the prime minister and their annual reports are sent to these offices rather than to parliament. However, this may also be the case for Court of Accounts and, indeed for Auditors General in Anglophone countries. Independence is not easy to achieve for any Supreme Audit Institution. The new president of the Court of Accounts in France was, for example, in effect appointed by Sarkozy in early 2010, the French president, and the UK government has just failed to establish an ‘independent’ budget office.

Multiple Audit Institutions in Many Countries

INTOSAI requires each country to nominate a Supreme Audit Institution, however, in many countries there are several bodies which contribute to the function of a Supreme Audit Institution. The public sector consists of a complex amalgam of different types of entities, these include central government ministries, departments and agencies, sub-national governments (states, provinces, local governments etc) and state owned enterprises (or parastatal organisations as they are usually termed in Africa). In many countries, the Supreme Audit Institution is only responsible for central government. So, for example, in the UK and US the Supreme Audit Institution is not responsible for the audit of local (or state) governments (as is also the case in Nigeria and Ethiopia). In France and other countries regional Courts of Accounts play a similar role. In addition, in some countries, state owned companies are not audited by the Supreme Audit Institution, they may be audited by private audit firms (for example, UK and Nigeria) or a separate institution, for example, the Audit Service Commission as in Ethiopia and Eritrea. As a result, there is a spectrum of different approaches. In India there is a very powerful Auditor General that is responsible for the audit of almost the totality of the public sector, in contrast in Nigeria there are 74 Auditors General and none of them are allowed to audit the accounts of state owned companies.

Models of Supreme Audit Institution in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa

Francophone Sub-Saharan African countries have two types of institution which undertake external audit type functions, either of which may be designated as the Supreme Audit Institution for an individual country:

• the Court of Accounts is a division of the Supreme Court or separate court within the judicial system. The individual members of the court (judges or magistrates) are led by a president who is generally appointed by the president of the relevant country. The court, with the support of its staff, judges the legality and regularity of the transactions and accounts of individual public accountants and reports to Parliament on the overall State Account. There is limited follow up of the Court’s reports by Parliament. The professional staff traditionally have a legal rather than accounting or audit backgrounds, but this is expanding in several countries

• the General State Inspectorate reports either to the president or the country’s prime minister, but it is largely independent of the state bureaucracy and has access to all state institutions, public servants and their documents. It usually largely sets its own annual programme. Each public institution may not be visited or reported upon each year. The larger ministries will be reviewed each year, but different departments will be subject to review each year. The professional staff of the General State Inspectorate are usually educated in public financial management at specialist higher education institutions. If irregularities are found they are reported to the relevant ministry or other agency for appropriate action to be taken (Wynne, 2010).

The Court of Accounts, as part of the judiciary, may be considered to be independent of the executive, but their members may be appointed by the president or the council of ministers and their reports may not be submitted direct to parliament. In France, which is the model broadly adopted by most Franco-phone countries, the first president of the accounts court is formally appointed by the council of ministers. The accounts court produces two annual reports. The first is sent to all members of parliament and reviews the execution of the budget. The second annual public report is sent to the president rather than to parliament (Bouvier, Esclassan & Lassale, 2004).

As the General State Inspectorate is accountable to the president or the prime minister they may also have a high degree of independence from the entities (ministries, departments and agencies) which they audit. A distinction could perhaps be made between independence from the executive and independence from the entities which are subject to audit. If the General State Inspectorate has the support of a strong president they may in fact have considerably more independence from the ministries and other bodies which they audit than a Court of Accounts whose budget may have to be submitted through the Ministry of Finance before being agreed by parliament (Wynne, 2010). In addition, there has been a trend in recent years for more General State Inspectorates to make their annual reports public.

The following General State Inspectorates are all members of INTOSAI and are the Supreme Audit Institutions for their countries (but each of these countries also has a Court of Accounts or equivalent):

· Burundi - Inspection Générale de l’Etat

· Cameroon - Contrôle Supérieur de l’Etat

· Centrafrique - Inspection Générale d'État

· Guinée Conakry - Inspection Générale d'État

· Mali - Contrôle Générale des Services Publics

· Togo - Inspection Générale d'État.

In these countries, the General State Inspectorates are full and active members of INTOSAI. The General State Inspectorate of Cameroon is currently hosting the Secretariat of CREFIAF, the sub-regional body of Supreme Audit Institutions in Francophone African countries. In 2002 the General State Inspectorate of Cameroon was also a member of the Board of INTOSAI. In the same year the 8th General Assembly of AFROSAI (the regional body of Supreme Audit Institutions in Africa) was held in Burkina Faso when the General State Inspectorate was the Supreme Audit Institution for that country and it was agreed that they would continue as the Secretary General of AFROSAI.

Wide Scope of Francophone Supreme Audit Institutions

Both the General State Inspectorate and the Court of Accounts have a wider scope than would be expected for Auditors General in Anglophone countries. They have be power to follow public money, something that was only recommended in the UK by the Sharman review in 2001 (Sharman). This report defined public money as:

“All money that comes into the possession of, or is distributed by, a public body, and money raised by a private body where it is doing so under statutory authority” (Sharman 2001: 15)

And then the report went on to recommended that public money should be subject to audit by public auditors. This principle is generally followed in Francophone countries and the General State Inspectorate and the Court of Accounts have a wide remit to audit the following:

• all public services, offices and organisations
• local authorities
• parastatal bodies, public companies, enterprises and establishments
• public projects and development agencies
• any bodies benefiting from public financial support (state aid).

The final bullet point may be extended to include all bodies making a public appeals for funds and so may include insurance companies, pension funds and trade unions. In Cameroon this may be extended still further and the General State Inspectorate may audit any private bodies that are strategic for the nation or related to national defence. In Senegal the scope of the Court of Accounts includes all those organisations in the above bullet points, all organisations controlled directly or indirectly by these entities and national appeals for funds from the public and the organisations benefiting from such appeals (World Bank 2009).

Specific Role of the Court of Accounts

In contrast to this wide scope, the Court of Accounts, has a very limited role. The core and original role of the Court of Accounts is to confirm, or otherwise, the legality of the accounts of the public accountants. If their accounts are found to be legal and regular, the public accountant is given quietus, or full discharge, and so is freed of any further personal or financial responsibility for the sums of money that they have paid (Bouvier, Esclassan & Lassale 2004). If any errors or irregularities are found then the public accountant may be required to repay the money concerned and, in addition, they may be required to pay a fine.

The other core role of the Court of Accounts is to provide a report which is sent with the budget out-turn report (financial statements) of the government to the National Assembly. This report may include some broad comments on the level of payments and receipts by the government compared to the budget for the relevant financial year and also a commentary of the general economic and financial environment of the country (Court of Accounts of Ivory Coast 2010). This report also includes a formal opinion or certificate of conformity between the level of payment orders paid by the public accountants and the value of the payments orders raised by the officials with responsibility for raising orders (ordonnateurs) (Lienert 2003).

In addition to this report to the National Assembly, the Court of Accounts provides a General Public Report on the activities of the Court. This is usually addressed to the President and may be made public. This provides general background details of the activities of the Court of Accounts for the year concerned, significant developments, major findings and may include details of training received. It will also usually include a summary of the main activities of the Court and any significant developments.

These quite specific roles of the Court of Accounts mean that the role of the General State Inspectorate may be complementary to the Court. In France, the role of the Court of Accounts has expanded. In Francophone Africa the General State Inspectorate has generally been used to fulfil these additional roles.

Origins of the General State Inspectorate

Under the French approach, there are a series of inspectors for each public service, for example, inspector of education, inspector of health etc. In 1906 the Governor General of French West Africa created the Inspection Service of Administrative Affairs. This body reported directly to the Governor and provided findings and propositions, which were less prescriptive than recommendations (Gueye 2008).

This service was reorganised in 1936 and again in 1937. At this stage the service was independent and essentially mobile. Inspectors were not allowed to take on other management or executive responsibilities. The scope of the work was now all administrative services except for the treasury and the technical services of the colonies head quarters. The inspectors had the obligation to inspect each territorial region every year and to provide an annual report of their activities, observations and follow up (Gueye 2008).

In 1943 the name of this service was changed to the General Inspection of Administrative Affairs. The General Inspector was nominated by decree of the Governor and chosen from amongst the governors of the colonies or the chief administrators. The service was based in Dakar and covered all of French West Africa (Gueye 2008).

With independence, the General Inspection of Administrative Affairs reported to the President of the Council and then to the President of the Republic. The General State Inspectorate was formed in Senegal, for example, in 1964.

More recently General State Inspectorates were established in countries which did not have them before, for example, in Djibouti in 2004 and in Mauritania in 2005. In 2001 the Commission on Reform of Structures and Missions of the State in Algeria recommended the formation of a General State Inspectorate reporting to the President to control the functioning of all public services and administration. This was to have been in addition to the Court of Accounts which reviews the financial operations linked to budget execution.
In Djibouti, despite the already existing Court of Accounts, a General State Inspectorate was established in law in 2001. The idea was that the ex post juridical control (after the event legal control) of the Court of Accounts would be complemented by a body which could act during the implementation of the budget (General State Inspectorate, Djibouti, 2007). The general state inspectorate has developed its own approach to audit which takes in to account all management sub-systems, “this includes:
• evaluating whether the character of new or existing programmes are effective, appropriate or pertinent considering their objectives and whether the expected results are achieved

• identifying constraints and performance factors and whether management has identified alternative solutions or the opportunity costs to achieve the programme’s objectives effectively and efficiently

• identifying any overlaps or duplications or conflicts with other programmes and recommending ways of executing programmes in the best manner possible
• evaluating programmes for conformity with laws and regulations, but also the adequacy of systems of internal control and especially systems to monitor their success” (page 10/11).

This first annual public report from the general state inspectorate of Djibouti also notes that:

“The general state inspectorate is a concept specific to Africa, with a universal, general and extended scope. It usually consists of elite staff recruited through competition from amongst the highest officials of the state (magistrates, national directors, secretaries general of ministries etc), at least in Sénégal, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire etc” (page 24).

This evolution and the spread of the formation of General State Inspectorates shows that the value and the usefulness of such organisations has been clearly demonstrated and recognised across Francophone Africa.

Conclusions

In Francophone African countries the Court of Accounts and the General State Inspectorate both play a complementary role in the audit, review and inspection of the financial management of their governments. In each case their independence is being improved in a number of countries. Their role is becoming more effective and the resources devoted to these institutions is being increased. However, such improvements need to continue.
In 2002 Transparency International made the following recommendations for further improvements in the quality of both the Court of Accounts and General State Inspectorate.

Court of Accounts

• The mission, objectives and the internal regulations should be defined and voted upon by parliament.
• Systems should be developed to protect the autonomy of the magistrates, their nomination and career management.
• The decisions by the Court of Accounts in their evaluation of public accounts should be final and not subject to any further appeal to another body.
• The annual reports of the Court of Accounts should be made public and subject to extensive publicity.
• The Court of Accounts should be provided with the necessary human, financial and material resources to undertake their work.

General State Inspectorate

• General State Inspectorates should be able to determine the majority of their annual work programmes
• The annual reports of the General State Inspectorates should be made public and subject to widespread publicity.
• The relevant authorities should take into account the propositions made the General State Inspectorate especially when these concern cases of fraud or corruption and recommendations to prevent this in future.
• Recruitment to the General State Inspectorate should be by competitive examination to avoid favouritism. Staff should benefit from regulations to protect the security of their positions and their career development.

In some countries co-operation between the Court of Accounts and the General State Inspectorate has improved in recent years. As with the co-operation between internal audit and the Auditor General in Anglophone African countries, there are a number of ways in which this could be further improved including the following steps (Diamond 2002):

• There should be proper coordination to ensure adequate audit coverage and to minimise duplication of effort.

• There should be access to each other’s audit plans and programmes.

• Periodic meetings should be organised to discuss matters of mutual interest.

• There should be an exchange of audit reports.

• Institutional mechanisms should be created to ensure common understanding and sharing of audit techniques and methods.

• Sharing of training and exchange of staff for two-three years in each case.

An effective Supreme Audit Institution is essential to achieve sound public financial management. In Francophone African countries, either the Court of Accounts or the General State Inspectorate may be nominated as the Supreme Audit Institution for a particularly country. However, these institutions play complementary roles. Despite significant improvements in recent years, further work is needed to optimise the independence, capacity and the resources available to both types of organisation.


References:

Bouvier, M, Esclassan, M & Lassale, J (2004) Finances Publiques, Montchrestien: LGDJ (7th edition)

Court of Accounts, Ivory Coast (2010) General Activity Report for 2008/09, Abidjan: Court of Accounts

Diamond, J., (2002) The Role of Internal Audit in Government Financial Management: An
International Perspective, Washington: IMF Working Paper 02/94

General State Inspectorate, Djibouti (2007) Annual Report of the General State Inspectorate, Djibouti

Gueye, Abdou Karim (2008) Inspections générales d’Etat d’Afrique. Réalités, perspectives et enjeux, Djibouti
www.thebookedition.com/inspections-generales-d-etat-d-afrique-Abdou%20karim%20Gueye-p-2871.html

Lienert, I (2003) A Comparison Between Two Public Expenditure Management Systems in Africa, Washington: IMF

Sharman, Lord (2001) Holding to Account—the Review of Audit and Accountability for Central Government, London: Stationery Office

Transparency International (2002) Combattre la Corruption : Enjeux et Perspectives, Berlin : TI

World Bank (2009) Training Needs Assessment for the Court of Accounts of Senegal, Washington DC: World Bank

Wynne, Andy (2010) Independence of Supreme Audit Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, International Journal of Governmental Financial Management, May - www.icgfm.org/digest.htm