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Swiss Confederation Ukraine has extensive public infrastructure inherited from the Soviet times but much of it has fallen into disrepair over the past decades and needs major rehabilitation or replacement so that growth may continue. Creating fiscal space for investing more is one of the critical tasks that facing the country, but a constrained fiscal space together with the use of investments as a stimulus for growth call for more efficiency in public investment management practices. There are a number of fundamental issues that need to be addressed if Ukraine is to make progress in its reform ambitions for public investment management (PIM). The most significant are: (1) most projects avoid scrutiny due to loopholes in classification (lack of definition of a public investment project); (2) there is no effective economic appraisal and appraisal review procedures in place due to limited human resource (HR) capacity, and no common technical standards; (3) the PIM system does not seem to block new projects from entering the budget but allows ministries to delay ongoing ones and squeeze in new ones; and (4) lack of strategic guidance with which to prioritize complicates project selection. One of the fundamental building blocks of a sound PIM system is a clear, legal definition of what counts as a public investment project and what does not. It should be pointed out that this already high discrepancy is only a comparative measure of input values. Developing projects that are output and performance driven should yield even greater efficiencies. Between 2000 and 2008, Ukraine was an average growth performer in a fast growing region, with gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaging 7 percent. As the global financial crisis hit the Ukrainian economy it contracted by 15 percent in 2009, exposing its underlying macroeconomic and structural vulnerabilities. As a result of the insufficient structural transformation and impact of the economic crisis, Ukraine now faces substantial fiscal pressures that threaten economic stability and growth. The Government of Ukraine recognized the need for a modern public financial management (PFM) system and put considerable emphasis on several aspects of PFM reforms. Training for the development of capacity in the PIM system is tricky in Ukraine. It is becoming clear that due to the dynamic nature of the Ukrainian civil service, officials are rapidly moving from one area of the Administration to another.

This paper is the continuation of previous research about trends in European Universities related to the application of full costing method. This paper aims to show current situation in accounting treatment of costs in higher education institutions, more precisely at University of Zagreb. Constituents of the University of Zagreb are primarily financed from the government budget. Accordingly, revenues and receipts and expenditures and expenses are reported according to budget classifications in accordance with the Budget Law (Official Gazette 87/2008). Authors will try to connect budget classification with the implementation of full costing method in separate model of cost accounting that could be developed for purposes of tracking and allocating costs taking into consideration activity based costing system. Regulations on the budget classifications adopted by the Minister of Finance differ following classifications: organizational classification, economic classification, functional classification, program classification and sources of funding. Mentioned classification will be analyzed in order to provide link between the monitoring of cost and certain activities recorded in program classification. That will provide possible model to accurately calculate prices of services at higher education institutions respectively the University of Zagreb.

Armenia gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and inherited a traditional Soviet- style command economy. After a period of hyperinflation and economic contractions, progress on basic reforms led to greater macroeconomic stability. The reform effort strengthened after 2000, aided by return flows of investment from the diaspora. Recognized for its prudent fiscal management and improved business environment, Armenia received a Rehabilitation Credit (RC) from the World Bank in 1995 and a series of five Structural Adjustment Credits(SACs) from 1996-2003 to maintain stability, accelerate growth, and sustain reform. The PRSC program in Armenia centered on four main themes that supported Armenia's poverty- reduction objectives: i) consolidating macroeconomic discipline and strengthening governance;ii) sharpening competition and entrenching property rights; iii) mitigating social and environmental risks; and iv) modernizing the rural economy. The PRSC also identified good governance and reduction of corruption as essential to achieving pro-poor growth. Furthermore, reforms implemented under the PRSC were intended to make the social sectors more efficient, raise the quality of services, and increase access for the poor.

During the past two decades Colombia has been developing and improving its National Results-Based Management and Evaluation System (SINERGIA). The development of this system has been a focal point in Colombia's state reform towards performance-based management, particularly at the central administration. After 15 years of progress, overcoming the effects of institutional, political, and fiscal obstacles, SINERGIA has achieved one of the highest levels of development and customization, and it is held up as an example of best practices by multilateral organizations, donor agencies, and other governments. The monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system that Colombia adopted sought to promote a results focus on both planning and budgeting processes, simultaneously. However, during implementation the results-based planning model superseded the budgeting model, owing principally to the architecture of Colombia's central administration and to the institutional placement of SINERGIA within the Department of National Planning. Compared with similar experiences in other countries, the process by which SINERGIA advanced institutionalization is notable for the way it combined high-ranking, wide ranging, and formal mechanisms with the development of informal practices in key areas of the public sector. Many lessons for other countries are identified in this paper. Some of the key factors in Colombia's success are as follows: 1) the importance of having a central governmental department act as a champion supporter, and using an opportunistic approach to include the M&E system as a key pillar on public sector reform agendas; 2) the kind of regulatory and incentives framework on which the M&E system is based, and the sustained effort in promoting 'cultural' change and developing evaluation capacities; 3) the political role of the President in the system's institutionalization process; 4) the powerful part that technically defined methodologies and dissemination mechanisms have played in the system's institutionalization strategy; 5) the collaborative approach used to strengthen evaluation practices and to enhance the community of evaluators; and 6) the demand-driven approach for introducing M&E at the regional level.

The public expenditure and institutional assessment (PEIA) were motivated by a number of factors. First, both the Government of Iraq (GoI) and its international development partners have recognized the critical importance of sound management of Iraq's substantial public financial resources. Both parties support the reform and modernization of public financial management (PFM), as articulated in the International Compact for Iraq (ICI). Secondly, international experience demonstrates the importance of establishing a baseline against which progress in PFM over time can be measured. This implies the need for an assessment which provides the information necessary to measure the performance of a country's PFM system. Thirdly, the devastating circumstances in Iraq during the past 5 years have made the institutional arrangements for PFM the subject of considerable uncertainty. The PEIA can help to shape and prioritize the necessary development program. The report is organized in two main parts. Volume one contains a summary of the main issues to emerge from the public expenditure and financial accountability (PEFA) assessment and a discussion of a number of specific PFM issues of current importance to Iraq, including: capital investment budgeting (CIB), oil revenue management, the Iraq financial management information system (IFMIS), public accounting and accountability, and payroll management. Volume two contains a detailed technical analysis behind the PEFA assessment.

Colombia's National Results-Based Management and Evaluation System (SINERGIA) is one of Latin America's outstanding results-based monitoring and evaluation initiatives. With 15 years of progressive development, SINERGIA has endured the countries' institutional, political, and fiscal problems and has attained one of the highest levels of development and customization in Latin America. Based on its accomplishments it has been held up as an example by multilateral organizations, donor agencies, and other governments. This paper examines the experience of institutionalizing Colombia's monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system, from the perspective of a former SINERGIA manager: Manuel Fernando Castro, Director of Public Policy Evaluation, and Department of National Planning. This study is meant to complement previous studies by other authors with an insider's account, description, and analysis of the obstacles encountered and the results obtained. Likewise, it presents recommendations on how to ensure further institutionalization and identifies several lessons that might be of interest to professionals who are developing evaluation systems in other countries.

This paper synthesizes the findings from a series of case studies on the interaction between the PRSP process and the budget. The five studies, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Tanzania and Vietnam aim to assess the extent to which public finance management and budget allocations reflect the principles and content of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper PRSP, hence providing insights into progress in PRS implementation. The cases also shed light on whether the PRSP process itself has fostered more accountable, efficient and pro-poor budget processes and allocations as of 2003.The PRSP process, with its focus on data and information for evidence-based policy-making, open and participatory policy-making processes, poverty results and country-led donor coordination, alignment and harmonization has the potential to significantly improve the pro-poor focus and general accountability of budgeting processes.The cases confront a number of methodological challenges. First, in some countries and sectors, lack of appropriate data constrained the extent to which the research questions could be fully answered. Second, the PRSP remains a relatively recent innovation in all the countries studied and we recognize that many of our findings are preliminary, and require additional confirmation over time. Third, any assessment of the value added of the PRSP approach needs to be cognizant of the initial conditions in country, both to avoid ascribing successes to the PRSP which pre-date its existence, and to temper expectations about what the approach can deliver in a relatively short space of time given the starting point of each country. To address this last challenge, the case studies explicitly acknowledge the pre-existing situation in-country and try to assess the value added of the PRSP process.The four countries studied have a number of common features.Finally, and perhaps most importantly, all five countries share a high-level political commitment to addressing poverty, although the extent to which this commitment permeates throughout government agencies varies from country to country.The five countries, however, also display many distinctive features. Bolivia and Cambodia, for example, both suffer from high degrees of political fragmentation, which in Bolivia has manifested itself as civil unrest on a number of occasions in the last two years. Burkina Faso, Tanzania, and Vietnam, on the other hand, benefit from more stable political systems and an inherited commitment to pro-poor policies from socialist governments.