DDI_NER_2008_PETSE_v01_M Antonina Redko 2011-10-07 NADA v01 (October 2011) Public Expenditure Tracking Survey in Education 2008 PETSE 2008 NER_2008_PETSE_v01_M World Bank Institute of National Statistics Ministry of Basic Education Ministry of Finance NADA Belgian Trust Fund Partnership Hooman Dabidian Cindy Audiguier Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) A Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) is a diagnostic tool used to study the flow of public funds from the center to service providers. It has successfully been applied in many countries around the world where public accounting systems function poorly or provide unreliable information. The PETS has proven to be a useful tool to identify and quantify the leakage of funds. The PETS has also served as an analytical tool for understanding the causes underlying problems, so that informed policies can be developed. Finally, PETS results have successfully been used to improve transparency and accountability by supporting "power of information" campaigns. PETS are often combined with Quantitative Service Delivery Surveys (QSDS) in order to obtain a more complete picture of the efficiency and equity of a public allocation system, activities at the provider level, as well as various agents involved in the process of service delivery. While most of PETS and QSDS have been conducted in the health and education sectors, a few have also covered other sectors, such as justice, Early Childhood Programs, water, agriculture, and rural roads. In the past decade, about 40 PETS and QSDS have been implemented in about 30 countries. While a large majority of these surveys have been conducted in Africa, which currently accounts for 66 percent of the total number of studies, PETS/QSDS have been implemented in all six regions of the World Bank (East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa). Primary Education Education Niger remains one of the poorest countries in the world and has consistently scored very low on all social indicators. The civilian government that came into power in 2000 has expended considerable effort to improve the country's fiscal and economic management, including structural measures aimed at improving public expenditures and financial management. Public Expenditure Tracking Survey in Nigeria, launched by country's government with the World Bank assistance in 2008, focused on identifying the discrepancies, inefficiencies and delays in public spending execution for selected expenditures in the education and health sectors. The medium to long-term goal of this PETS is to launch a process aimed at continuous improvements in public expenditure efficiency and equity by focusing on capacity building in this area in the ministries of education and health and in the Institute of National Statistics. Based on requests from the respective ministries, the PETS tracked selected government expenditures in education (textbooks, notebooks and drawing books for students) and in health (food expenditure, hospital supplies, and essential medicines). As customary, the PETS focused on the amount and delivery timing of public resources distributed to end-users facilities. Documented here is the survey of public expenditure in Niger education sector. Three regions - Dosso, Tillabéri and CU Niamey - were selected based on their close proximity to the capital. Investigators decided to survey only primary schools because primary education is free and accounts for a large proportion of the total education budget. Data was collected from three regional education offices, 21 district education offices and 299 primary schools. A field survey was conducted in May and June 2008. The data was then analyzed by matching and comparing budget allocated, credit released, resources distributed and received. Whenever such a detailed comparison was not possible due to the scarcity of data, average amounts were compared between each node. Thus, all resource flows were reconciled in and out of each spending channels node. Niger Dosso, Tillabéri and CU Niamey regions - Ministry of Basic Education; - district education offices; - primary schools. Sample survey data [ssd] The general methodology of a PETS is intuitively simple, consisting of charting budget flows and release mechanisms (funds and materials) through various government agencies and facilities. The in- and out-financial and material flows are compared (ideally reconciled) at each of the consecutive nodes of the observed spending channels that correspond to the specific resource distribution mechanisms. This is often referred to as vertical tracking. In practice, a PETS is inheritably complicated and cumbersome to implement due to the complexity of the financial management system and the generally low quality and availability of data. When a vertical tracking is not possible due to lack of information, an alternative approach, relying less on detailed data, is simply to compare per capita resource flows at each administrative node. The PETS sample design was regionally, but not nationally representative. Such an approach was successfully implemented in Mali (with a PETS in the health sector sampling Bamako, Segou, and Mopti). This choice was made jointly with the authorities and driven primarily by budget and logistic considerations. For the sample to be nationally representative, one would have required to survey remote regions which are sparsely populated. Given that this was the first PETS in Niger, the National Statistical Office (Institut National de la Statistique, INS) decided to increase the quality of data collection by limiting geographical coverage. Three regions - Dosso, Tillabéri and CU Niamey - were selected based on their close proximity to the capital. These are three relatively well populated regions, accounting for 38 percent of total population. Within each region, districts and service providers were randomly selected to ensure data were regionally representative. Face-to-face [f2f] The main challenge faced by a tracking survey in a country like Niger is the availability and accuracy of records keeping. The Niger PETS highlights a general lack of systematic information recording. For example, there were no records on dates when financial transactions took place among central or regional administrative offices whereas such information was often available for material flows at lower level facilities. The quality of records in the education sector is low and data often incomplete. This is especially a problem when a higher level agency distributes resources to lower level agencies. The absence of down stream records indicates a lack of systems for downward accountability and can facilitate the diversion of resources. The use of this survey must be acknowledged using a citation which would include: - the identification of the Primary Investigator (including country name) - the full title of the survey and its acronym (when available), and the year(s) of implementation - the survey reference number - the source and date of download (for datasets disseminated online). Public use file The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.