Marc Robinson Blog

Ministry Ceilings and Top-Down Budgeting

- May 14, 2026 - Marc Robinson comment

In my recent technical note Top-Down Budgeting Today, I set out a clear alternative to the failed hard ministry ceilings doctrine. The HCM doctrine, which has become PFM conventional wisdom, asserts that governments should set…

Accruals / Budgeting / Fiscal policy

The Golden Rule & Fiscal Responsibility

- January 26, 2026 - Marc Robinson comment

The golden rule of public finance is a time-honored fiscal policy principle that says that governments should only use debt for capital expenditure and not to fund current operations. I've always been a supporter of…

Health Care / Monitoring & Evaluation / Uncategorized

Access and Outcomes

- January 12, 2026 - Marc Robinson comment

Ensuring access to government-provided basic services such as education and healthcare is vital. However, what ultimately matters are outcomes, and access does not guarantee outcomes. This is a lesson that we have learnt the hard…

PFM

Reimagining Public Finance? (Part 2)

- September 10, 2025 - Marc Robinson 3 Comments

The Reimagining Public Finance (RPF) team has put forward for discussion a thoughtful set of proposals intended to improve technical work in public financial management (PFM) and public finances more generally. These proposals are designed…

Budgeting / PFM

Reimagining Public Finance? (Part 1)

- September 9, 2025 - Marc Robinson 5 Comments

Reimagining Public Finance (RPF) is an initiative by a committed group within the World Bank to address a significant problem that affects public financial management (PFM) and public finance reform practice. The problem is that…

Accruals / Budgeting / PFM

Putting Accruals to Work

- August 25, 2025 - Marc Robinson comment

Many governments have invested large sums of money in the development of accrual accounting. Unfortunately, for most of these governments this has to date been a poor investment. Why? Because many are making little or…

Budgeting / Monitoring & Evaluation / Performance Budgeting / Spending Review

A Strategic Approach to Performance Information

- July 9, 2025 - Marc Robinson comment

Performance information is crucial for high-performance government. Performance budgeting is part of that: budget decision-making needs to be informed by good information about the effectiveness and efficiency of government spending. The approach to performance information…

Budgeting / Monitoring & Evaluation / PFM / Spending Review

Evaluation, Spending Review & the Budget

- February 26, 2025 - Marc Robinson comment

Evaluation should be a key source of information for budget decision-makers. In practice, however, it has had surprisingly little impact on decisions about what to fund and by how much1. This raises the question: what…

Monitoring & Evaluation

Evaluation: What about Efficiency?

- February 19, 2025 - Marc Robinson comment

Is efficiency analysis the poor relation in the current wave of evaluation reforms? Governments around the world have been establishing government-wide evaluation policies; creating central units and task forces to promote evaluation; and encouraging or…

Monitoring & Evaluation

Evaluation: Learning from Past Mistakes

- February 12, 2025 - Marc Robinson comment

A wave of enthusiasm for evaluation has been sweeping governments around the world in recent years. In country after country, governments are acting to increase the amount of evaluation undertaken and ensure that it is…