The progress of development of the PEMPAL Strategy 2017-22 was considered by the PEMPAL Executive on July 14-15 2016, in Bern, Switzerland. The meeting was hosted by one of the main donors of PEMPAL program, the Switzerland Government’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), and was attended by the members of Executive Committees of all three PEMPAL COPs (Treasury COP (TCOP), Internal Audit COP (IACOP) and Budget COP (BCOP)). The participants included 17 member country representatives from Ministries of Finance and Treasuries from 13 countries (Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Russian Federation, and Tajikistan). Representatives of the key donors to the program: SECO, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, and the World Bank also participated.
The objectives of the meeting were for the PEMPAL Executive to consider the progress made on the development of the PEMPAL Strategy 2017-22 and to make decisions on:
- Approaches to identifying COP thematic priorities for the next five years, including ideas to strengthen cross-COP collaboration;
- Feasible costing options and funding scenarios for the next strategy; and
- How to improve PEMPAL’s methodology and approach to collecting success stories.
Key decisions were made on these aspects, which shaped the draft of the strategy document finalized in September and shared with the COPs for consultations. The ‘Event Report’ summarizing the key discussions and decisions can be found
here.
The main meeting was preceded by parallel preparatory
meetings of the three Executive Committees held on July 13. Minutes of the meetings are accessible here:
TCOP, BCOP. Minutes of IACOP meeting are available on request.
At the start of the meetings, SECO organized thematic presentations on the public finance reforms of the Switzerland Government in relation to a) developing accrual accounting and the lessons learnt; and b) fiscal rules in the form of Swiss cantonal debt brakes and their institutional and legal framework at the subnational level, delivered by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, School of Management and Law. The presentations can be found
here.
Representatives from PEMPAL and the World Bank also attended the SECO offices to provide a presentation on the peer learning approach used by PEMPAL during a ‘brown bag lunch’ on July 13. Around twenty SECO participants attended the presentation and a ‘questions and answers’ session on the processes and peer learning approaches used by the network.
The Bern events concluded with
the Steering Committee meeting that endorsed the next steps to finalize the new PEMPAL Strategy. Minutes of the Steering Committee meeting can be accessed through the link
here.
The TCOP Executive Committee met (through videoconference) on September 8th, to discuss the issues related to preparation of the events planned for the FY 2017. Several thematic videoconferences were scheduled for the fall 2016, including the meeting devoted to cash management on October 19, 2016. Minutes to the Executive Committee meeting can be found
here.
