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

Budgeting in Postconflict Countries 437
A good interface between donors and the government agency responsible
for aid management
Fullest possible transparency
Widest consultation permitted by the security situation.
The main necessary condition to meet all of these criteria is a reasonably
comprehensive government budget—realistic and public. It is through
a unified budget that the coherent program of reconstruction activities can
be reflected; it is through discussions on the draft budget that donors and
the government can interact; it is through the budget that basic economic
policies can be reflected; it is through the budget that the allocation of
resources to different activities and regions can become clear to all concerned
parties; it is through the budget that implementation and monitoring
of the agreed activities can take place, in accordance with uniform rules,
practices, and financial controls; finally, and most important, it is through
the budget process that the practice of public consultation, open debate, and
habits of compromise can be rebuilt.
In a postconflict setting, transparency and participation are especially
important. The climate of reciprocal suspicion generated by the conflict
means that every shadow is seen as a threat and every closed door as a conspiracy.
In such a setting, no other public management practice can dispel
those shadows and suspicions as effectively as a wide-open budgeting
process—as consultative and participatory as possible.
Selecting Reconstruction Expenditure Priorities
This section discusses the issue of whether certain well-known strategic
investment considerations apply in a postconflict situation, as well as a
number of critical issues concerning the choice of investments and the need
for managing the foreign aid to finance them.
Do “Strategic Projects” Exist? The Conceptual Foundation of
Investment Choices
Aside from addressing the emergency priority needs that are evident in any
postconflict situation, a major question is whether the agreed program of
reconstruction activities—previously mentioned as the first condition for
successful reconstruction—can be anchored by a number of strategic projects
that can enable, facilitate, or even drive further investment and economic
reconstruction and recovery down the line. This question has a long pedigree,