IMF Regional Note on Exploring the Role of Budgeting for Efficient Social Expenditures: Jordan Country Case

This Regional Note builds on a partnership among the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) and METAC on public financial management topics. It explores key budgetary institutions with regards to their contribution to spending efficiency in the social sectors by presenting the results of a Jordan case study. By improving spending efficiency, Jordan could achieve more in terms of educational attainments or public health indicators with given resources. The national budget plays an important role to improve productive efficiency and to tailor spending to citizen need. More robust costing, particularly in health and education infrastructure, would provide critical efficiency gains. The institutionally demanding reform of program and gender-responsive budgeting that Jordan has been embarking on should progressively target the outcome level in order to “raise the bar” and strengthen results. Under the overall goal to increase budgetary transparency, it would be useful to trace the flow of funds to service delivery units; this needs to go hand in hand with efforts at strengthening accountability, including through better monitoring and consistent ex-post evaluations that feed into budget planning. A more credible macro fiscal forecast would support realistic budget planning, key to keep in check spending pressures that naturally arise as quality improvements are introduced.