Public Sector Governance and Accountability Series: Budgeting and ...

Automating Public Financial Management in Developing Countries 345
The upgrade to IBEX addresses the following main concepts and
demonstrates that a customized IFMIS can have the full capability of an OTS
IFMIS (DSA Project 2005):
Scalability. The current BIS and BDA applications are desktop applications
that must be installed separately on every workstation that needs them.
The implication is no marginal decrease in both the rollout and support
tasks of implementing these systems nationwide. IBEX is a browser-based
application, hosted from a few centers, thus making it highly scalable in
terms of implementation and support.
Security. IBEX improves data security by using a state-of-the-art security
framework to ensure the integrity of national financial data. 29
Data integrity and manageability. By unifying the data store for all application
functions, IBEX eliminates the problems caused by multiple data
stores. IBEX also upgrades to a full-scale database product that will handle
the volumes of data present in the system for the foreseeable future.
Extensibility. Besides implementing the automation of the core financial
management functions, IBEX exists as a framework for integration of
financial functions in general. The application architecture means that
the addition of integrated financial modules, or functions or reports
within the existing modules, is greatly simplified.
Functionality and usability. The IBEX application brings with it a redesigned
interface that is intended to replicate what users are accustomed to while
improving interface controls where possible. In addition, the IBEX framework
provides for dynamic internationalization, which allows users to
change the language of the application on the fly, and it supports the addition
of other language sets should they become necessary.
Institutional Issue: The Virtues of Benign Neglect
The Ethiopian experience presents an interesting counterhypothesis to the
conventional wisdom that information system reform requires top management
commitment (from either the government or foreign aid agencies):
benign neglect can actually facilitate reform. Neglect by both the government
and the donor-creditors meant that technical development could proceed
unimpeded by external micromanagement or duplication.
On the government side, the two-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea
starting in 1998 was fortuitous for the financial reform because it insulated
the reform from government and foreign aid agency micromanagement during
the critical early development stage and allowed the iterative development