Most people thinking about economic development for the world’s poorest countries would focus on aid and crisis with TV cameras beaming the horror of the situation straight into our homes.
What happens when the cameras switch off and the immediate crisis has relented? Emergency aid stops, the international community’s gaze goes elsewhere and governments desperately try to raise standards of living of their populations to put the country on the road to economic prosperity.
To improve their economic prosperity many countries need to modernise their public services - schools, health care and housing - and tackle many of the ills which befall them - resource waste, inefficiency and of course, corruption.
This is where the public sector accountant is desperately needed.
Countries with low standards of living need financial assistance as well as better and more efficient systems to keep track of the money that flows into their exchequers. This is to ensure value for money for their population.
Well-trained public sector accountants and improved financial management systems can ensure effective administration of public money and aid. Lack of knowledge of the structure, purpose and role of public financial management coupled with donors’ relative lack of support for such systems undermines aid donation and long-term development efforts.
The role that public sector accountants can play to improve delivery of public service is not the most newsworthy side of international development. Men and women in suits, carefully auditing the figures and examining budgets do not make for pretty TV pictures.
It is, however, an important factor if error, waste and corruption in developing countries are to be tackled in the long-term.
Caroline Mawhood chairs the Public Sector Committee of the Federation of European Accountants and CIPFA’s International Strategy Board
This month sees CIPFA’s first international conference Trust and accountability in public sector financial management. This event advances the cause of the public sector accountant around the world as essential to changing lives.
