In January, we will be starting a new executive education program at the Kennedy School.
It focuses on public financial management reform. It does not address 'what' to do in these reforms, however. I think we have many great answers to the 'what' question. Instead, it focuses on 'how'. This is the big question in many countries:
- How do we find the right solution?
- How do we implement it?
- How do we sustain it?
We plan on taking these questions seriously for a week of intense engagement with people from all over the world. We will be asking about ways in which reformers can: (i) get in front of contextual complexities that often undermine reforms (the icebergs I speak of in prior postings), (ii) find and fit solutions that match their context (being politically acceptable and practically possible), and (iii) engage distributed agents across government to make reforms work.
In addressing these questions, we will also be asking about things like sequencing (what should be done first, second, etc.) and about which best practices on should learn from (and how one should learn).
We are trying to make this as practical and rigorous as possible. In this light, we will be drawing from a number of reform cases that shed light on how to make public financial management systems more functional.
The Swedish case
I am preparing the material in regard to Sweden's 1990s reforms right now. While not a developing country, the process by which Sweden reformed since the mid-1990s is really interesting, and relevant for all countries. We will be discussing it in detail in January, but I thought it might be interesting to throw some material out here.
For some background, consider the following work, that relects on a reform that took a country from high debt, fiscal distress, and major government failure to sustained surplus, fiscal stability and effective government in under a decade.
Wow.
http://193.200.113.93/fileadmin/jvi_files/DG_ECFIN_Conference/Per_Molander_2.pdf
http://blog-pfm.imf.org/files/molander-2001.pdf
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/policydis/pdp21.pdf
Here also, see Goran Persson -- former Prime Minister -- talking about the lessons of Sweden's reform for current European countries. Note how he does not speak as much about the technical 'what' about the reforms...but rather he focuses on the contextual factors that provoke reform, and the way in which leaders should engage with contexts to make change happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTeQjwao7nA
We will build on this kind of example in January to discuss the way in which problems (crises and even slowly developing disturbances) create space for change. The questions we will address include: What problems do you have? How can you construct these problems to get attention and buy-in needed for change? How can you use the problems as the entry point to overcome contextual constraints (political and otherwise)?
Sweden did it. So can the United States--and Uganda--and Colombia--and Vietnam--and Cambodia--and the Solomon Islands--and your country.
I would love to hear any thoughts you have about the Swedish reforms as you read the material and listen to the audio.
Finding solution is always been so very hard things to do,financial management also is really hard to manage however there are a lot of accounting that will do the job on managing it,in Finland country accounting firms are one of the main reason on good management for all finances in business.
Posted by: Oona Peltomaa | 10/18/2012 at 09:47 PM