Governance and Public Finance
Better and more predictable governance is crucial for safeguarding human rights, and is a prerequisite for progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
For developing countries to be able to take leadership for their own development, they are dependent on improving revenues, building solid and effective systems for revenue management, strengthening national statistical systems and registries as a basis for informing decisions to prioritize resources and to stop leakages through corruption, illicit capital flows and tax evasion. Better and more predictable governance is crucial for safeguarding human rights, and is a prerequisite for progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Governance portfolio focuses on improved revenue and governance of public finance in developing countries through more transparent and efficient tax systems and the fight against illicit financial flows, while at the same time enabling the increased fiscal space to be used for pro-poor purposes and allocated towards national development plans in support of the SDGs.
The portfolio consists of five interconnected and mutually reinforcing outcomes. The interaction between global systems and the national systems is important to ensure that global standards reflect developing countries’ needs and capacities.
Development outcomes:
- Revenues: Countries have improved and more just domestic resource mobilisation from taxes and tariffs
- Management: Countries have improved public financial management that supports equity outcomes and gender equality
- Statistics: Countries have improved national statistical systems that produce and use statistics for policy
- Integrity: Countries have improved systems to prevent and prosecute corruption and illicit financial flows (IFF)
- Global standards: Global standards for public finance and financial integrity adapted to developing countries’ needs and capacities