CABRI
A brief on the Collaborative Africa Budget
Reforms Initiative: A Senior Budget Officials
of Africa forum.
By Kubai Khasiani
Kenya
Chair-CABRI
Objectives of Cabri
The Collaborative Africa Budget Reform
Initiative (CABRI) is an African-led and
managed network that aims to contribute
towards the efficacy of public financial
management by improving the
appropriateness, quality and sustainability of
budget reform programmes.
Objectives of CABRI(contd)
It seeks to build stakeholder understanding
on budget management
support capacity improvements for budget
implementation and management
support the development of common
approaches regarding key international and
regional initiatives.
Objectives of CABRI(contd)
It seeks to promote a culture of professionalism
among Senior Budget Officials from Africa and to
share and learn from each other’s success and
failures and build on them to create a credible
public financial management system in the
continent with the final objective of improving
service delivery and achieving economic and social
development goals in Africa.
Effect
Ownership of reforms:- Through interaction
Creation of capacity: Through country visits,
opportunities to share and learn
Demonstration effect: learning from each
other
Conception
The idea was initially conceptualised by
officials from the ministries of finance from
South Africa, Mozambique and Uganda in
response to the increasing interest of senior
budget officials in learning from their peers in
other African countries.
Memorandum
A Memorandum of Understanding for the
network was drafted at the Inaugural Meeting
of a Network of Senior Budget Officials in
Africa in Nairobi, June 2005.
Memorandum
Agreed that there should be an annual
Budget Reform seminar which brings
together all CABRI network members to
network and review experiences, discuss
reform solutions and work towards an
understanding of which reforms work and
why. The MoU was updated at the Second
Budget Reform Seminar in Maputo,
Mozambique.
Activities of Cabri
CABRI- started in 2004 with an initial seminar
in South Africa Pretoria where 9 countries
from Africa attended
A follow up Business meeting in June 2005
in Nairobi
2nd seminar held end of
November/December 2005 in Maputo,
Mozambique
Organization
CABRI run by a Management Committee
currently consisting of Kenya, Uganda,
Mozambique, Mauritius, Nigeria and South
Africa.
Secretariat based in South Africa and current
Chair is Kenya
Achievements
Have had two successful Seminars on
various current themes in public financial
management. Third one planned for Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia in December, 2006
Have published two seminar outputs on the
presentations and discussions
Have own website.www.africa-sbo.org with
the publications
Achievements Contd
Have secured assistance from partners to
fund activities including setting up a fulltime
secretariat. Advert for staff currently running
Contacts
kkubai@treasury.go.ke
Neil.Cole@treasury.gov.za
Alexandra@treasury.gov.za
CABRI-Future
Membership:- all countries in the African
Continent are invited to be members and to
participate in the activities of the association
Resource Mobilization: Already a number of
donors have started supporting the
organization but the main source of funding
will be expected to come from member
countries once the MOU is ratified by
Member governments.
CABRI-Future Contd
We look forward to playing a leading role in
budget reforms in the continent.
We shall also collaborate with similar
initiatives across the globe