Latin America and Caribbean regional financial management improvement project - LAC/RFMIP [: final report]

The $4 million project sought to improve accountability and financial management and combat corruption in government by carrying out region wide and country specific activities and events, and, based on feedback and results, develop a strategy for USAID"s LAC Bureau to implement during coming decades to improve national government accountability and financial integrity. When the project was conceived in 1988 there was only one major governmental financial management improvement project underway in the region -- the joint World Bank/USAID supported SAFCO Project in Bolivia -- and this also represented the only real effort at donor coordination. By the conclusion of LAC/RFMIP at mid-1992, 11 international and bilateral donors were coordinating efforts across the region, efforts which included major financial management reform either in process or being designed for 13 countries. Twelve quarterly meetings of the LAC Donor Working Group on Improving Public Sector Financial Management were held to coordinate donor efforts. This unprecedented collaboration also resulted in producing a data base on 72 projects in 21 countries financed at over $177 million, all of which seek in some measure to enhance accountability. Over 2,550 persons participated directly in 22 events for which LAC/RFMIP provided 96 speakers. More than 10,000 viewers were estimated to have seen USAID"s first teleconference, RESPONDACON II (the Second Inter-American Conference on the Problems of Fraud and Corruption in Government), transmitted via satellite under a grant from INTELSAT in collaboration with USAID and 21 regional and international professional organizations. Quarterly English and Spanish language "Accountability" newsletters were reaching nearly 10,000 subscribers by mid-1992. Five thousand each of two Spanish language anti-corruption books and 10,000 each of three anti-corruption wall posters were being distributed throughout the Hemisphere in collaboration with the Inter-American Accounting Association. LAC/RFMIP"s principal product, STRATAC -- A Strategy for Accountability based upon the Integrated Financial Management Systems (IFMS) concept -- has been presented to and adopted by USAID"s LAC Bureau, and has also been accepted by most of the collaborating donors as a framework for future actions to improve the accountability of the Latin American and Caribbean governments. Two training courses have been developed to indoctrinate both program and financial managers in the IFMS approach, and a new operational auditing course supports its oversight by legislative auditors. (Author abstract)