Tunisia Public Expenditure Review : A New Pact for the Transition - Modernizing the State for Better and Fairer Public Spending
Tunisia faces the challenge of improving the quality of its public spending and maintaining fiscal sustainability following a decade of weak economic performance. It is critical for Tunisia to strengthen the quality of infrastructure and services,...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/225051591252911165/Tunisia-Public-Expenditure-Review-A-New-Pact-for-the-Transition-Modernizing-the-State-for-Better-and-Fairer-Public-Spending-Overview-Report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33854 |
| Summary: | Tunisia faces the challenge of improving
the quality of its public spending and maintaining fiscal
sustainability following a decade of weak economic
performance. It is critical for Tunisia to strengthen the
quality of infrastructure and services, and to support
inclusive growth and private sector job creation. The aim of
this public expenditure review (PER) is to identify
structural policy options to help Tunisia tackle its
economic and social challenges through more effective and
equitable public spending. This PER employs a rich set of
detailed spending data at the level of the central
government and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to analyze how
public expenditures in Tunisia can be allocated and spent in
a more effective and equitable manner. The report also
assembles detailed expenditure, operational, and financial
data from SOEs with a focus on the energy, water, roads, and
public transport sectors. These data allows to analyze and
benchmark Tunisia’s spending trends, effectiveness, and
equity, and to identify areas in which spending growth can
be contained, where spending gaps exist, where resetting of
spending priorities is needed and reallocation of
expenditures necessary, and where spending should be more
balanced to reduce inequities. The PER is organized in three
blocks. The first block - composed of chapters one to four -
analyzes the macro-fiscal profile and the two largest
spending items, namely wages, energy, and food subsidies, as
well as the single largest liability, namely pensions, and
the social protection system which is critical for
protecting vulnerable households from shocks and from the
potential negative effects of certain reforms. The second
block - composed of chapters five and six - covers the
education and health sectors, the two most important social
services for human capital development, which account for
the largest share of social spending. The third block -
composed of chapters seven to nine -analyzes the issues of
public investment efficiency and SOE performance in the
electricity, water, roads, and transport sectors. |
|---|