Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations in Myanmar: Current Processes and Future Priorities in Public Financial Management Reform

Abstract

While efforts to engage in more ‘bottom-up’ planning in Myanmar are encouraging, most inputs and prioritization appear to occur at the upper levels of government, with local input and project monitoring occurring mainly through a small number of opaque mechanisms. This applies in many cases, despite subnational projects often being partially funded by community members and government entities through in-kind contributions and ‘no-name taxes’. While the informality of such contributions may hold a number of advantages for local development as, typically, they are locally collected and utilized, they also present risks, not the least of which is that they operate outside of external monitoring mechanisms, such as the Audit Office. Given this, approaches that encourage the best use of in-kind and voluntary contributions should be investigated, both as an avenue for encouraging more community inputs into the budget process and to help ensure local contributions are used to the greatest effect and do not represent an excessive burden on local households.