Dar es Salaam
Utvecklingssamarbete / Development Cooperation

General Budget Support

Budget support is money going straight to the government’s treasury. In other words it is not earmarked to any specific expenditure but it allows the government to increase overall spending. Budget support money is in that sense indistinguishable from taxes, tariffs etc and thereby uses and over time strengthens the national Tanzanian budget processes and accountability systems. Budget support is given to contribute to reduce poverty and therefore budget support donors like Sweden are interested to know what the government intends to do with the money to improve the lives of its citizens generally and reduce poverty in specifically. In order to have a structure to discuss these questions, budget support donors have agreed with the government on a number of outcomes to be achieved which include tor example, how many children go to school or how many children are vaccinated. Once a year the government and development partners discuss overall performance in these and other relevant areas for poverty reduction.

Swedish support

In 2005 Sweden and Tanzania came to an agreement which implied a substantial move from project and programme to GBS as financial modality for Swedish development assistance to Tanzania. This was also reflected in the Country Strategy where it is stated that “the principal change under the new strategy will be the transition from project to programme support to increased levels of GBS. The reason is that Swedish assistance needs to be adapted to the new aid architecture based on a common donor strategy with GBS as the principal modality. Thus GBS should not be viewed as a residual aid modality that can be replaced by project or programme support.”

As a consequence of the agreement the GBS as a share of the country allocation has increased from 35% in 2005 to approximately 40% in 2006 and to 53% in 2007, and an estimated 66% in 2008. The high share in 2008 is partly a consequence of a decrease in the country allocation for Tanzania and it is foreseen to drop the coming years.

Objectives

The objective of GBS is to contribute to poverty reduction and reaching the MDG targets, through the implementation of the National Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction (the MKUKUTA) by providing predictable financial resources to government expenditures. The objectives of the MKUKUTA are therefore the objectives of the budget support. The objectives are:

  • promote growth and reduction of income poverty
  • improve the quality of life and the social well-being
  • promote good governance and accountability

Results

Since results are widespread in this type of support, here are merely some examples: In the first cluster of the MKUKUTA relating to “Growth and reduction of income

Contact:

Anders Berlin

 
3 Crowns