January – February 2007
New projects
Center for Fiscal Policy in consortium with Institute for the Economy in Transition (Russia) launched the new project “Technical Assistance to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation”. The two-year project (December 2006 – December 2008) consists of the three components:
Component 1. Development of the mechanisms and tools to monitor processes and outputs of mid-term and annual planning and execution of regional and local budgets.
Component 2. Technical assistance to the Department of Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations (DIGFR) of the Ministry of Finance of RF in implementation of regional and municipal finance reform, and stimulation of reliable finance policy employed by regional and local governments.
Component 3 Facilitation of the dialog between Ministry of Finance of RF and regional and local finance Departments on the issues related to the development of the budget federalism and predictability of the fiscal policy in Russia.
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Seminars
On January 29, 2007 – February 9, 2007 USAID grantee the Center for Fiscal policy (CFP) conducted training on its Moscow premises for 13 regional consultants from five North Caucasus regions that include Kalmykia, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Chechen, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria Republics. The purpose of the training was to train trainers that would be able to provide consulting assistance to the officials from regional and municipal administrations of the North Caucaus regions. All of participants were selected by the regional administrators. In addition, 2 participants represented North-Caucasus Academy for Civil Services (Pyatigorsk), the CFP partner in the North Caucuses region. Academy is interested in incorporating best practices in budgeting in the Academy’s training modules.
The CFP delivered training under the component ‘Training of trainers’ of the project . ‘Technical assistance to the North Caucasus Regions’
In February 2007 the CFP delivered the CFP’s training course to the municipal officials and policy-makers in the four municipalities (urban okrugs) of Leningrad oblast. The training was conducted under the DFID project ‘Sustainable poverty reduction in Leningrad oblast’
Working with NIS countries
Last month (February 2007) the CFP experts provided technical assistance in the area of inter-governmental fiscal relations to the Ministry of Finance of Republic of Kazakhstan to the Ministry of Finance of Republic of Moldova
Publications
In this report:
Sector Performance
Sector Institutions Laws,
Government Resolutions,
Mid-Term Development Policies and Programs: The Role of Each in Shaping Federal Budget Expenditures Federal Expenditures to Support Agricultural Production in 2000-2004
Subnational Expenditures to Support Agriculture in 2000-2003
Budgetary Process and Federal Allocations to Regions for Agricultural Support
Other Policy Instruments Recommendations for Agro-Food Policy Improvement at the Federal, Regional and Local Levels
The purpose of this PER is to propose measures for increasing the efficiency of public expenditures on agrarian sector at the federal, regional and local levels. Examined are budget expenditures of federal, regional and local governments on the agrarian sector over the period 2000-2004 and the role of policy statements in shaping the actual expenditures. For the purposes of this report public expenditures on agricultural sphere are understood as subsidies to agricultural producers, expenditures on providing public services to agricultural producers, expenditures on rural development under federal and regional targeted programs, and expenditures of principal government agencies involved in rural area/agrarian sector development. The focus is made on expenditures recorded in the federal and regional budgets (budget expenditures), since data on the off-budget revenues and expenditures of government agencies and organizations is not covered by official reporting. . The forms of state support of agriculture that exist in Russia are not limited to measures that require public spending. A considerable portion of state support is provided through tax privileges and deferrals, state guarantees, trade protection and institutional support. These other forms of state support to agriculture and rural development are mentioned only briefly, since the focus of this report is on actual budget expenditures.
Upcoming
In March 2007 the CFP will present the results of the research on Cost & socio-economic consequences of the reform of the system of social protection of orphans in Tomsk oblast. The research was conducted under the contract with the US AID Program “Assistance to Russian Orphans - ARO” and aimed to estimate cost and effect of incorporation and scaling up of the innovative ARO services in the system of social protection of orphans in Tomsk region. The CFP developed a methodology that allows calculating cost of public services provision in the area of social care, and estimate cost & effect of incorporation of alternative services provision modes in the social protection system. The results of the research will be presented in Tomsk to the officials and professionals of Tomsk administration, expert community, federal officials, ARO specialists, and US AID.
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