IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devpol/v21y2003ip449-480.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is There a Place for Virtual Poverty Funds in Pro-Poor Public Spending Reform? Lessons from Uganda's PAF

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Williamson

    (Research Officer in the Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure, Overseas Development Institute, London)

  • Sudharshan Canagarajah

Abstract

Various developing countries with weak public expenditure management systems are establishing virtual poverty funds (VPFs), drawing on the experience of Uganda's Poverty Action Fund. As a mechanism for tagging and tracking the performance of specific poverty-reducing expenditures in the budget, a VPF can be useful. However, this article argues that such devices should be treated from the outset as transitional, and as part of wider processes of strengthening public expenditure management; otherwise, they can seriously distort public expenditure allocations and management systems, potentially undermining growth. Emphasis needs to be placed on identifying the right balance of expenditures in the entire budget; improving the effectiveness and efficiency of existing allocations; and developing better public-sector policies for promoting pro-poor private sector growth. Copyright Overseas Development Institute, 2003.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Williamson & Sudharshan Canagarajah, 2003. "Is There a Place for Virtual Poverty Funds in Pro-Poor Public Spending Reform? Lessons from Uganda's PAF," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 21, pages 449-480, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:21:y:2003:i::p:449-480
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kappel, Robert & Lay, Jann & Steiner, Susan, 2004. "The Missing Links - Uganda's Economic Reforms and Pro-Poor Growth," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 3840, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Tankari, Mahamadou & Badiane, Ousmane & Montaud, Jean-Marc, 2013. "When social goals meet economic goals: the double dividend of extending access to healthcare for farmers in Uganda," Conference papers 332430, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    3. repec:zbw:ifwkie:3715 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Kappel, Robert & Lay, Jann & Steiner, Susan, 2005. "Uganda: No more pro-poor growth?," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 3504, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Peter Miovic, 2004. "Poverty Reduction Support Credits in Uganda : Results of a Stocktaking Study," World Bank Publications - Reports 15673, The World Bank Group.
    6. Jean-Marc Montaud & Mahamadou Roufahi Tankari, 2013. "When social goals meet economic goals: the double dividend of extending free access to healthcare in Uganda," Working Papers hal-01880339, HAL.
    7. Asante, Augustine Danso & Zwi, Anthony Barry & Ho, Maria Theresa, 2006. "Equity in resource allocation for health: A comparative study of the Ashanti and Northern Regions of Ghana," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(2-3), pages 135-148, October.
    8. Jean-Marc Montaud & Mahamadou Roufahi Tankari, 2013. "When social goals meet economic goals: the double dividend of extending free access to healthcare in Uganda," Working Papers hal-01880339, HAL.
    9. Edward Batte Sennoga & John Mary Matovu, 2013. "Public Spending Composition in Uganda and its Implications for Growth and Poverty Reduction," Public Finance Review, , vol. 41(2), pages 227-247, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:21:y:2003:i::p:449-480. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/odioruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.