Midterm evaluation of the LAC regional financial management improvement project

The evaluation covers the period 5/89-4/91. Progress has been made towards achieving the project"s purpose. The project has sponsored eight regional, sub-regional, country- specific, and key financial manager conferences for more than 1,250 public sector financial managers. Training has exceeded targets and produced excellent results: the Comptroller General Office operational audit course has been institutionalized in Costa Rica, and four fraud and corruption seminars have sparked interest in the subject among government financial managers in Panama, Nicaragua, and Haiti. The project newsletter is widely distributed in English and Spanish and contains timely information on FM topics and conferences. Country assessments in Panama, Colombia, and Costa Rica have generated interest at upper governmental levels. As a result of the assessments, Panama is ready to install an integrated FM system; Costa Rica and Colombia are reforming their Comptroller General Office; and Chile is ready to implement FM courses for both financial and non-financial managers. The project has also: identified a PC-based accounting software (TECAPRO) to help in monitoring and reporting donor funding on a regionwide basis; developed (though not circulated) a database of most regional FM activities; and drafted a comprehensive strategy to implement an international FM system on the central government level. On the negative side, the project"s contracting mechanism has allowed neither the flexibility nor the resources to fund all the potential activities identified to date. The Panama assessment, which was unforeseen, had a severe impact on the project budget. Nor has the LAC Bureau provided sufficient staff support for the project. Several lessons have been learned. (1) Since the project"s design, implementation, and training activities are mostly untested, periodic assessments may result in changes to the models. (2) Any TA activities on the Mission level will overburden Mission comptrollers and staff. (4) Conferences, meetings for FM professionals, professional audits, and country assessments can all help to effect meaningful change. (5) Political will is the first condition to any intervention. (6) Contract mechanisms must allow donors to react immediately when host country climate is right to initiate FM changes. (7) Host country financial managers need to be better informed of the scope of and process for submitting potential project activities. (8) LAC financial managers are genuinely concerned about solving the problems of fraud and corruption in government.