Georgia Public Expenditure Review : Building a Sustainable Future
This Public Expenditure Review (PER) was prepared at the request of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia; its analysis of public spending is designed to inform the Georgian authorities on the fiscal policies that support growth and equity. As Georgia...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/630321497350151165/Georgia-Public-expenditure-review-building-a-sustainable-future http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27138 |
| Summary: | This Public Expenditure Review (PER) was
prepared at the request of the Ministry of Finance of
Georgia; its analysis of public spending is designed to
inform the Georgian authorities on the fiscal policies that
support growth and equity. As Georgia strives to meet the
challenges of a fluid global economic environment, this PER
is intended to support the government’s efforts to secure
macroeconomic and fiscal sustainability to promote growth
and equity. This is a testing time for Georgia’s public
finances, as the country faces slowing growth and a
difficult regional context.This Public Expenditure Review
(PER) is organized in two chapters; the first focusing on
the overarching macro-fiscal challenges facing Georgia, and
the second “zooming in” to the challenges for public
spending in the health sector. In particular, the PER
provides an overview of the recent macroeconomic and fiscal
developments highlighting major drivers of rising spending,
and analyzes potential revenue gains that could be derived
from eliminating tax expenditures (Chapter 1). The second
part of the report carries out a detailed review of the
health spending in Georgia, providing both the context and
rationale for implementing the much needed Universal
Healthcare (UHC) program in 2013, while highlighting the
need for properly managing the existing short-term cost
pressures, as well further improving the system’s long-term
efficiency and sustainability. This PER is an integral part
of the programmatic series of PERs (2012, 2014, and 2015)
providing new analyses and recommendations that are
complementary to the existing ones. The PER (2012) analyzed
the rising expenditure pressures on social and capital
spending, and presented options for fiscal consolidation,
including measures to improve selectivity in capital
expenditures, enhance the sustainability of the pension
program, and the coverage of targeted social assistance. The
PER (2014) examined the spending on social protection,
health, and education, and provided recommendations
including strengthening the Social Service Agency,
increasing the UHC drug coverage, strengthening preschool
education, and improving general and vocational education.
It also analyzed quasi-fiscal spending and intergovernmental
fiscal relations. A special volume of the PER (2014) studied
Georgia’s Public Investment Management and how it could be
further enhanced to improve the efficiency of public
investment. The PER (2015) highlighted the presence of
spending pressures from social programs and analyzed
spending efficiency, which led to policy options to direct
the redistribution policies towards greater equity, improve
agriculture subsidy programs and local government
spending.This PER, as a continuation of the series, while
focusing its analyses and recommendations strategically on
new and specific challenges, it also draws a selected number
of recommendations from previous PERs, notwithstanding that
most issues covered in previous PERs remain crucial and need
to be addressed in parallel. |
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