Collaborative Africa Budget Reforms Initiative (CABRI): A Senior Budget Officials of Africa Forum

1. CABRI A brief on the Collaborative Africa Budget Reforms Initiative: A Senior Budget Officials of Africa forum. By Kubai Khasiani Kenya Chair-CABRI

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Effect • Ownership of reforms:- Through interaction • Creation of capacity: Through country visits, opportunities to share and learn • Demonstration effect: learning from each other

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. Have secured assistance from partners to fund activities including setting up a fulltime secretariat. Advert for staff currently running Achievements Contd

13. Contacts kkubai@treasury.go.ke Neil.Cole@treasury.gov.za Alexandra@treasury.gov.za

14. 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.

15. 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