December 2007

THE CFP RESERCHES

The CFP research on Public Services in Rural Areas awarded among the ten best in the Fragile States: Addressing Vulnerability section of the Global Development Awards and Medal Competition Viktoria Semerkhanova,the Research Team Leader, will present the project results at the international conference to be held in Australia in January 2008.

Dr. Kurlyandskaya member of the Working Group on Federalism and Local-Self-Governance at the President of RF presented indicators developed by the CFP to evaluate public services in education at the Working Group Meeting on the 18th of December. The indicators were approved by the WG and its Chairmen I. Shuvalov.
The indicators have been developed by the Financing Public Services sector of the CFP with its Team Leader Natalia Tipenko

Earlier, in 2006 – 2007, the CFP developed a system of indicators to monitor and evaluate regional government performance. Most of those indicators then built a base for the evaluation system accepted by the Presidential Envoy in the Southern Federal District.
More about the achievements of the Technical Assistance to the Northern Caucasus Regions project

SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES

On December 7, 2007, the city of Stavropol hosted a seminar on intergovernmental fiscal relations in Stavropol Krai in 2008. It was attended by representatives of Krai municipal raions and urban districts and SK MoF officers. CFP expert A. Deryugin made a report that covered the following issues:

• Main provisions of the draft law On Amendments to the Law of Stavropol Krai On Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Stavropol Krai


• IGFR regulation instruments in Stavropol Krai


• Improvements to budget legislation of the Russian Federation


• Improved legislation on the assignment of powers and expenditure responsibilities

In fact, the seminar’s format was a report on the “Further Improvement of Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Stavropol Krai” project implemented by the CFP. Its agenda also included issues connected with advantages and disadvantages of transit to standard-based principle of intergovernmental fiscal relations in Krai. At the end of the seminar, the leaders of the SK Finance Ministry confirmed their intention to collaborate with the CFP in order to further improve the budgetary process and IGFR relations in Krai. Specific areas and dates of such collaboration were also discussed.

The CFP hosted an Expert Meeting

December Expert Meeting, organized by the CFP and supported by USAID, has become as important event for the expert community as the April Seminar has been for regional and local financiers for a long enough. At the seminar – 2007 held on December 14 issues to discuss related to standards for public services and financial modes to provide equal access to these services throughout Russia, to incorporation of performance-based budgeting and mid-term financial planning in budget processes on regional and local levels and to other sensitive areas of the current Russian fiscal regional and federal policies. The Expert Meeting brought together most of the leading Russian experts and chief officials of the federal entities that made it extremely useful in term of harmonization of the diverse expert approaches to corresponding issues and in term of developing recommendations to the federal government.

ON-GOING PROJECTS

Technical Assistance to the Northern Caucasus Regions

On December 4 – 6, 2007, CFP experts G. Kurlyandskaya , O. Vorontsova and V. Dahlin visited the Republic of Adygeya to start activities in a new pilot region of North Caucasus. In September 2007, the republic’s Government addressed the CFP with a request for advisory assistance in the field of the regional financial management reform. During their visit to the city of Maikop, the CFP experts had a meeting with the RA finance minister and discussed collaboration priorities. They also conducted a seminar for leaders of the republic’s finance, economy, education, health care, social protection and H&U ministries. The seminar opened with a speech from the Prime Minister of the Republic of Adygeya who drew the audience’s attention to the importance and urgency of the public service funding reform. The CFP experts told the seminar participants about the main components of the forthcoming reform. Later, during their meeting with representatives of the line ministries, they worked out a tentative schedule covering activities of the CFP and the RA Government regarding the development of the reform program and drafting a bid for the Regional and Municipal Finance Reform tender organized by the RF Ministry of Finance in 2008.

On December 3-7, 2007, CFP experts S. Vlasikhin , G. Pokatovich and Yu. Gerasimova went on a business trip to the capital of Kabarda-Balkar Republic, the city of Nalchik. At the republican level, the aim of their visit was to discuss and finalize the draft law On the Budget Structure and Budgeting Process in Kabarda-Balkar Republic that deals with the budgeting process and intergovernmental fiscal relations. The finalized draft was submitted to the KBR Finance Ministry to be further presented to the KBR Government and Parliament. Also, at their meeting with MoF representatives, the CFP experts discussed the draft Provision on Reports of Subjects of Budget Planning on Performance and Basic Lines of Activities. The document is ready for submission to KBR Government. Another important item of their trip was associated with drafting a bid from the city of Nalchik to participate in the tender on subsidies from the Federal Fund for Regional and Municipal Finance Reform. With this purpose in view, the CFP experts had several meetings at the finance and line departments of Nalchik Administration. The collected materials and information were used for developing the Municipal Finance Reform Program for the city of Nalchik. As of today, the program is at the final stage of its development.