Adopting best practices of OECD countries and utilising performance information for public sector budgeting and management will further develop Qatar’s public finance sector, an official has said.
Qatar Finance and Business Academy CEO Dr Abdulaziz al-Horr said these issues were discussed by experts from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at a recently held two-day workshop entitled “The challenges, Lessons, and Opportunities of Using Performance Information for Public Sector Budgeting and Management.”
Al-Horr said the Qatar Institute for Public Finance (QIPF) organised the workshop, which was attended by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance Khalaf bin Ahmed al-Mannai. More than 40 representatives of 16 ministries and government and semi-government entities participated in the event, he said.
He said the workshop shared the experiences of OECD countries that have engaged in public sector modernisation reforms, including Qatar, which went through a series of reforms that aim to boost the efficiency of public services and optimise the sector’s value creation, as part of the country’s National Development Strategy 2011-2016.
During the workshop, OECD Budgeting and Public Expenditure senior policy analyst Delphine Moretti and OECD head of Budgeting and Public Expenditures division Jón R Blöndal highlighted the main concepts associated with performance evaluation in the public sector, and provided an overview of practices and reforms in OECD Countries.
Gerhard Steger, former director general for Budget and Public Finances of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance, explained how performance objectives and indicators are defined in Austria with the objective of limiting performance information to the most relevant aspects for decision-making and remaining constant over a long period of time in order to monitor developments and providing understandable data to users (parliament and the public).
Similarly, Chris Boughton, senior policy analyst in the Government of Canada’s Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Programme Performance and Evaluation Division, shared insights on departmental performance measurement and evaluation through monitoring, guidance, and capacity building.
Al-Mannai said, “As citizens’ expectations from government and public service institutions continue to evolve, a cohesive public sector reform and modernisation strategy is no longer a luxury in today’s world. It is at the heart of bringing about positive change and creating an environment that both facilitates and governs a country’s growth and development.”
He added, “As a member of the OECD, Qatar, through its Ministry of Finance and other stakeholders in the public sector, has taken this critical mission seriously and dovetailed it with the country’s National Development Strategy 2011-2016, resulting in a raft of structural reforms that sight more efficient, transparent, and responsive public services for citizens, in the course of realising the objectives of Qatar’s National Vision 2030.”
Al-Horr said, “Although there is tremendous value in bringing together the experts and authorities in directing and managing public sector reforms in different OECD countries and parts of the world to one platform so they can share their experiences in the process, the most important gains come in the form of the invaluable insights that transpired through the exchange of ideas and expertise that took place at the QIPF workshop, on the stage and off.”


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