Field Trip to Tanzania to Examine the Impact and Problems of General Budget Support

Mitsuaki Furukawa, JICA-RI’s senior research fellow, and Junichiro Takahata, research associate, visited Tanzania for a preliminary field survey from September 6 to 29. As a leader and a coordinator, respectively, of a new research project “Significance and Limitations of Budget Support under Development Assistance Regimes,” they consulted with the officials of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Health, and local authorities about the project in the former capital, Dar es Salaam and its vicinity.

General budget support (GBS) is an aid modality in which donors provide unearmarked aid money by directly putting it to the recipient country’s general account so that the recipient can spend it with their own independent decision. Furukawa and Takahata interviewed local officials and collected information focusing on whether a full cycle of budgetary and operational planning, execution of budget, and monitoring and evaluation -- which are designed to maximize the effect of GBS -- is functioning efficiently. As a result, they discovered GBS in Tanzania has structural and institutional problems. GBS funds are not transferred to local governments, who deliver public services to their populations, at an appropriate timing, and budget use is not efficiently done due to a dysfunctional system (such as lack of trained human resources, inadequate administrative infrastructure).

With the data collected, the research team will empirically verify the correlation between the GBS method and the issues observed in the field survey. “To broadly generalize the problems regarding GBS and its service delivery, it’s critical to conduct comparative studies with cases of other countries along with that of Tanzania,” says Furukawa as he reflects upon his trip. As requested by the local government, the team is currently preparing for a full field survey to be undertaken in the first half of next year.

RELATED RESEARCH AREA: Aid Strategies

Mitsuaki Furukawa, JICA-RI Senior Research Fellow