Accountability in International Development
Public Financial Management
Analysis of PFM reform sequencing, PEFA diagnostics, IFMIS investments, cash management, and the persistent gap between what donors fund and what actually improves how governments manage public money — grounded in two decades of field experience across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Member of the original PEFA indicator design team
The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability framework was developed in the early 2000s. The author of this platform was part of the original indicator design team — and has spent the intervening two decades watching the framework be misused.
About this platformPEFA & Diagnostics
How PEFA is designed, how it is misused, and what Schick's "Basics First" sequencing actually requires.
IFMIS & Technology
Why $3 billion in World Bank IFMIS investments across Africa has not produced functional budget execution.
Cash Management
Treasury Single Accounts, commitment controls, and what working PFM cash management looks like from the inside.
Fragile States
PFM reform sequencing in post-conflict settings — the Liberia experience and its transferable lessons.
The IFMIS Money Pit: Why $3 Billion in World Bank Investments Has Not Fixed African Public Finance
A systematic review of 47 IFMIS investments finds recurrent failure patterns that standard project evaluations do not capture — and a reform model that consistently reproduces the problem it is meant to solve.
Read paperAgainst Thematic Overlays: Why PEFA Climate and Gender Modules Undermine the Basics-First Imperative
Expanding PEFA before core PFM controls are functional violates the sequencing logic that makes diagnostics useful. The Secretariat is moving in the wrong direction.
Read noteAggregate expenditure out-turn
Stock & monitoring of expenditure payment arrears
Central government operations outside financial reports
Accounting for revenue
Internal audit
External audit
Legislature scrutiny of audit reports
Accountability in International Development
Public Financial Management
Analysis of PFM reform sequencing, PEFA diagnostics, IFMIS investments, cash management, and the persistent gap between what donors fund and what actually improves how governments manage public money — grounded in two decades of field experience across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Member of the original PEFA indicator design team
The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability framework was developed in the early 2000s. The author of this platform was part of the original indicator design team — and has spent the intervening two decades watching the framework be misused.
About this platformPEFA & Diagnostics
How PEFA is designed, how it is misused, and what Schick's "Basics First" sequencing actually requires.
IFMIS & Technology
Why $3 billion in World Bank IFMIS investments across Africa has not produced functional budget execution.
Cash Management
Treasury Single Accounts, commitment controls, and what working PFM cash management looks like from the inside.
Fragile States
PFM reform sequencing in post-conflict settings — the Liberia experience and its transferable lessons.
The IFMIS Money Pit: Why $3 Billion in World Bank Investments Has Not Fixed African Public Finance
A systematic review of 47 IFMIS investments finds recurrent failure patterns that standard project evaluations do not capture — and a reform model that consistently reproduces the problem it is meant to solve.
Read paperAgainst Thematic Overlays: Why PEFA Climate and Gender Modules Undermine the Basics-First Imperative
Expanding PEFA before core PFM controls are functional violates the sequencing logic that makes diagnostics useful. The Secretariat is moving in the wrong direction.
Read noteAggregate expenditure out-turn
Stock & monitoring of expenditure payment arrears
Central government operations outside financial reports
Accounting for revenue
Internal audit
External audit
Legislature scrutiny of audit reports
Accountability in International Development
Public Financial Management
Analysis of PFM reform sequencing, PEFA diagnostics, IFMIS investments, cash management, and the persistent gap between what donors fund and what actually improves how governments manage public money — grounded in two decades of field experience across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Member of the original PEFA indicator design team
The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability framework was developed in the early 2000s. The author of this platform was part of the original indicator design team — and has spent the intervening two decades watching the framework be misused.
About this platformPEFA & Diagnostics
How PEFA is designed, how it is misused, and what Schick's "Basics First" sequencing actually requires.
IFMIS & Technology
Why $3 billion in World Bank IFMIS investments across Africa has not produced functional budget execution.
Cash Management
Treasury Single Accounts, commitment controls, and what working PFM cash management looks like from the inside.
Fragile States
PFM reform sequencing in post-conflict settings — the Liberia experience and its transferable lessons.
The IFMIS Money Pit: Why $3 Billion in World Bank Investments Has Not Fixed African Public Finance
A systematic review of 47 IFMIS investments finds recurrent failure patterns that standard project evaluations do not capture — and a reform model that consistently reproduces the problem it is meant to solve.
Read paperAgainst Thematic Overlays: Why PEFA Climate and Gender Modules Undermine the Basics-First Imperative
Expanding PEFA before core PFM controls are functional violates the sequencing logic that makes diagnostics useful. The Secretariat is moving in the wrong direction.
Read noteAggregate expenditure out-turn
Stock & monitoring of expenditure payment arrears
Central government operations outside financial reports
Accounting for revenue
Internal audit
External audit
Legislature scrutiny of audit reports
Accountability in International Development
Governance & Accountability
Analysis of the institutional accountability architecture of the World Bank, IMF, and regional MDBs — the gap between formal frameworks and actual accountability, the integrity function, trust fund oversight, and the political economy of institutional self-reform.
The World Bank's Integrity VP: A 29-Year Chronology of Acknowledged Failure
OED, IEG, the Volcker Panel, and U.S. Senate sources all document the same institutional pattern. Why has nothing changed?
Read essayEmergency Without Evidence: IMF COVID-19 and Fiduciary Standards in Sub-Saharan Africa
$24 billion disbursed in 11 days on average — without the safeguards the Fund's own frameworks require.
Read paperInstitutional change in form without change in function — adoption of the labels and structures of reform without the underlying practice.
A structured pre-disbursement assessment of governance and PFM risks that should accompany all emergency and programme lending.
Bank-Executed Trust Funds — donor contributions administered and spent directly by the World Bank, with significantly weaker accountability than standard lending.
A legal or regulatory step a borrowing government must complete before a Development Policy Operation can be disbursed — the core instrument through which DPO conditionality operates.
All Analysis
Public Financial Management
Analysis of PFM reform sequencing, PEFA diagnostics, IFMIS investments, cash management, and the persistent gap between what donors fund and what actually improves how governments manage public money — grounded in two decades of field experience across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Member of the original PEFA indicator design team
The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability framework was developed in the early 2000s. The author of this platform was part of the original indicator design team — and has spent the intervening two decades watching the framework be misused.
About this platformPEFA & Diagnostics
How PEFA is designed, how it is misused, and what Schick's "Basics First" sequencing actually requires.
IFMIS & Technology
Why $3 billion in World Bank IFMIS investments across Africa has not produced functional budget execution.
Cash Management
Treasury Single Accounts, commitment controls, and what working PFM cash management looks like from the inside.
Fragile States
PFM reform sequencing in post-conflict settings — the Liberia experience and its transferable lessons.
The IFMIS Money Pit: Why $3 Billion in World Bank Investments Has Not Fixed African Public Finance
A systematic review of 47 IFMIS investments finds recurrent failure patterns that standard project evaluations do not capture — and a reform model that consistently reproduces the problem it is meant to solve.
Read paperAgainst Thematic Overlays: Why PEFA Climate and Gender Modules Undermine the Basics-First Imperative
Expanding PEFA before core PFM controls are functional violates the sequencing logic that makes diagnostics useful. The Secretariat is moving in the wrong direction.
Read note