For a long time such important aspect of the MDG debates like the size and quality of public spending could not be converted into the real data and numbers. To fill this gap, Oxfam teamed up with an NGO Development Finance international and development and came out with the new initiative to examine planned and actual spending of the governments in seven sectors, disaggregated by types (recurrent and capital), and sources of funds (government revenue or donor funding).

//  Government spending watch

Working with a network of government officials, DFI has pulled together and analysed the budgets of 52 low and middle income countries (with another 34 to follow), to find out the size and quality of public spending. The findings of the project named Government Spending Watch were summarised in the report "Progress at Risk" (to be published later this year).

//  GSW key findings

• Most countries have been increasing revenue and spending as a % of GDP, but this is now going into reverse
• The sources of government finances have shifted from grants to loans, including more expensive domestic borrowing, raising fears about growing debt burdens (although no new debt crisis is imminent)
• Countries with IMF programmes have raised less revenue, are cutting deficits faster and have seen less positive trends in MDG spending. Agriculture and health spending are now much higher as a percentage of GDP, and education and social protection spending are rising faster in non-IMF countries. Other MDG sector spending is stagnating compared with GDP or total spending.
• For all MDGs, the vast majority of developing countries are spending much less than they have promised or than international organisations have estimated is needed. Only one third of countries are meeting any education or health goals, and less than 30 per cent are meeting agriculture and WASH goals. Trends have been even less positive for gender and sustainable development.
• Some of the spending has been funded by rapidly growing aid – especially in education, health, WASH and agriculture. Progress in these areas is threatened as OECD aid flows are now declining in real terms, and are increasingly moving away from MDG sectors to infrastructure and growth.
• In most countries, actual spending is substantially less than the amounts announced in budgets (see table). This is particularly true in the health, agriculture and WASH sectors, reflecting delays in donor funding, and absorptive capacity problems in sector ministries and decentralised government agencies.
• Types of spending show two worrying patterns. Some sectors (WASH and agriculture) are dominated by investment, raising the need to increase recurrent spending dramatically to maintain buildings and equipment. Others (education, health and social protection) are dominated by recurrent spending on wages and supplies. Especially if donors reduce budget support, which funds much recurrent spending in many countries, governments will need to make even greater revenue efforts to maintain recurrent spending and keep delivering progress.

//  Relevant studies

Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has also reviewed government expenditure and the feasibility of meeting sectoral spending targets and came to the similar findings:

• Government spending on key development sectors is falling short of spending targets in many developing countries
• Even total government expenditure would not, in most cases, be enough to meet the agreed spending targets
• A silo approach to sector financing means that development sectors compete for resources and this has the potential to undermine good public finance management

//  Download

GSW Project summary__ PDF

MDG Spending (Executive summary)__ PDF

ODI Project briefing__ PDF

//  Source

Duncan Greens Blog

//  Background

After the High Level Expert Forum (HLEF) on food insecurity in protracted crises, the CFS endorsed the recommendations of the HLEF report and launched a two-year consultative process to develop an Agenda for Action to address food insecurity in protracted crises. The e-consultation "Addressing food insecurity in protracted crises: adequate and appropriate funding" is the first in a series of consultations to explore funding-related aspects.

//  Questions to discuss

The e-consultation covers:

• Constraints to adequate funding mechanisms
• In terms of short-term funding mechanisms and long-term needs, there are examples where programmes have managed to work around this, linking short-term funding to longer-term strategies. Whilst these are generally ad hoc and contingent, what can we learn from these experiences? What were the particular benefits and costs of working this way?
• Ideally donors should allocate – and account for – funding according to assessed needs and programming opportunities, with sufficient resources to respond to protracted crisis conditions. How can we best advocate for long-term funding commitments, with no interruption in spending, to account for the time needed to overcome protracted and often forgotten crises?
• Which existing flexible, stable and/or innovative funding mechanisms could be built on? Are there any lessons learnt that should be shared? What lessons can be drawn from the experience of USAID's crisis modifiers, or the EU's Strategy for Security and Development in the Sahel?
• Which are the appropriate roles of donors and the external humanitarian/ development communities, and the roles of national and local government, national and local civil society?
• Could adapting existing mechanisms (e.g. non-annual CAPs or pooled funds like MDTFs) lead to a more appropriate funding, supporting programmatic objectives more effectively?

//  Participation

Contributions can be submitted in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian online or per email to (This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

//  Download

Contributions received__ DOC

Topic note__ PDF

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010__ PDF

//  Source

FSN Forum e-consultation__ Food insecurity in protracted crisis

High level forum on food insecurity in protracted crisis 

Committee on World Food Security

//  FAO strengthens partnership with civil society

For many years FAO has been working with civil society organisations under the principles of the 1999 FAO policy and strategy for cooperation with NGOs and CSOs. However, during the last decade the CSOs as well as FAO itself have undergone several changes in terms of coordination, management and capacities. To address these changes, FAO is now developing a set of new principles for cooperation with civil society on the basis of the existing document, developed in 1999.

//  Areas of cooperation

The revised strategy identifies six areas of cooperation:

• Field programme
• Knowledge sharing and capacity development
• Joint use of resources in emergent situations
• Policy dialogue
• Normative activities
• Advocacy and communication

The last two were added to the approach of the 1999 strategy -- the other four fields have been substantially expanded.

The implementation of revised strategy will be focused on the decentralized level, since CSOs have important outreach capacity in rural and isolated regions and thus can access important information about food systems. Furthermore, local CSOs can contribute to creating more effective rural policies and social protection schemes as they have knowledge about the needs of communities.

//  Benefits for CSOs

It is not that FAO is aiming to capitalize on the capacities and knowledge of local CSOs without providing anything in exchange. Advantages of cooperation with FAO for civil society are summarized in the revised strategy and include following benefits:

• Access to a neutral forum for discussions vis-à-vis private sector, member states and other stakeholders
• Access to information, capacity building, technical knowledge and expertise on key food security areas
• Possibility of suggesting items for discussion in the agendas of FAO meetings
• FAO can facilitate discussion and the exchange of views between CSOs and member states at all levels

FAO will also look at the possibility of establishing a Multidonor Trust Fund for civil society as a tool for capacity building and wider participation in FAO's broad areas of work.

//  Source

Portal on FAO-Civil Society collaboration

1999 FAO Policy and strategy for cooperation with civil society organisations

//  Downloads

Revised FAO Strategy for partnerships with civil society

"MY World", a joint development of the United Nations Development Programme, the UN Millennium Campaign, the Overseas Development Institute and the World Wide Web Foundation is an online option survey which aims to inform the post-2015 development agenda.

// Why online survey? 

As of today, 73470 people from 190 countries have participated in the survey. The results are going to be submitted to the Secretary General´s High Level Panel for Post-2015 before their meetings in Bali and New York to "feed into their final report and recommendations for a new development framework in May 2013", as the MY World website informs.

The survey reaches out to citizens of all ages, genders and backgrounds, but particularly - the world's poor and marginalized communities. A critical question is however the representativeness of such a survey conducted online -- keeping in  mind that only a third of the world's population have internet access. Another concern about the project is whether the outcomes would not be used for political speculations rather for achieving real results.

//  Source

MY World

FAO will soon test a new, faster and more precise way of measuring hunger and food insecurity in four pilot countries in Africa. The new approach relies on gathering information on the extent and severity of hunger from food-insecure people, through a carefully-designed annual survey to be conducted in collaboration with polling specialists Gallup, Inc, the agency said in a news release. Known as the Voices of the Hungry project, the new approach will be tested on a pilot basis in Angola, Ethiopia, Malawi and Niger. These countries have agreed to move towards the complete eradication of hunger, in line with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Zero Hunger challenge. 

// Keeping simple

The survey comprises of only 8 questions, but the results of such questionnaire would allow to identify the state of food security of a respondent, differentiating between mild, moderate and severe food insecurity. The new indicator will measure food access at the individual level, complementing the existing FAO methodology to monitor food availability on a national level and identify percentage of undernourished in the population. An important advantage of a new approach is that the results of the surveys would be available in days rather than years, allowing FAO to take an almost real-time snapshot of a nation's food insecurity situation.

// Sources

FAO Media Centre

UN News Centre