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Results for Development Institute

What We Do

Strengthening Institutions to Improve Public Expenditure Accountability

The Challenge
No government action has the potential to improve the daily lives of poor people more than the budget. However, studies repeatedly fail to find a proportional link between public spending levels in the social sectors and human development indicators. A major reason for this disconnect is that public funds are often allocated ineffectively and inequitably, resulting in a poor use of public resources. 

The Opportunity
Led by the Global Development Network (GDN) and the Results for Development Institute (R4D) since 2008, the five-year Strengthening Institutions to Improve Public Expenditure Accountability (SI) project supports and empowers local research institutions and think tanks to produce reliable public expenditure analyses and reform proposals, shape policy debates, and thus improve the effectiveness with which governments allocate and use their resources in the health, education, and water sectors. SI focuses on local institutions to increase the sustainability of independent budget analysis in low- and middle-income countries.  

Our Work 
SI’s competitive grant program empowers think tanks and research institutions to improve the quality of public expenditures in the health, education and water sectors by strengthening their institutional capacity for public expenditure analysis, policy alternatives development and constructive engagement with policymakers. The project does this by supporting organizations as they carry out connected research, analysis and dissemination activities around program budgeting, cost-effectiveness, and benefit incidence analyses, as well as policy simulations and major budget reform proposals.

SI’s capacity building work emphasizes four key elements:

  • Technical training – customized training in public expenditure analysis tools and communications skills, along with tailored individual support from experts in the field
  • Peer learning – Peer review, collaboration between organizations from different countries analyzing similar issues
  • The production of  internationally comparable information on public expenditure incidence, effectiveness, and policy reforms
  • The creation of a strong network of institutions working on public expenditure analysis and reform

SI is supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) through its Governance and Transparency Fund.

Partners

Our partners are organizations located in developing countries and transition economies in Latin America, South, East and Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa:

  • Advanced Social Technologies (AST) - Armenia
  • Center for Economics and Development Studies (CEDS) Faculty of Economics, Padjadjaran University - Indonesia
  • Center for Research and Communication (CRC) - Philippines
  • Centre for Budget and Policy Studies (CBPS) - India
  • Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC) - Argentina 
  • Center for the Study of the Economies of Africa (CSEA) - Nigeria
  • Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) - Uganda 
  • Fundación para el Desarrollo de Guatemala (FUNDESA) - Guatemala
  • Graduate School of Public Administration and Public Policy (EGAP, Tecnológico de Monterrey University) - Mexico
  • Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) - Kenya
  • Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) - Ghana
  • Policy Research and Development (PRAD) - Nepal
  • Research Center of the University of the Pacific (CIUP) - Peru
  • Unnayan Shamannay (US) - Bangladesh