Government Performance is a Journey, not a Destination

Poetic, but true, admitted, David Nummy, in his summing up of the ICGFM Winter Conference, Impact in Managing Public Finance. The conference co-chair concluded that government performance is about continuous improvement.

Public finance professionals from over 30 countries presented case studies, discussed trends and participated in workshops to share best practices about government performance, results and outcomes at the Enrique Iglesias Conference Center of the Inter-American Development Bank.

Mr. Nummy, of Grant Thornton, described the increasing interest in performance frameworks in governments around the world. He concluded that government performance management is different among countries. The country context is important when designing performance frameworks. The process of moving from traditional budgeting to performance budgeting ranges between 4 and 8 years based on the experiences of the countries at the conference. The discipline and knowledge of government performance management is maturing. Performance frameworks have become an integral part of public financial management reform.