Bangladesh has signed a $100 million financing agreement with the World Bank to improve public service delivery through an effective, efficient and transparent public financial management system, reports UNB.

The Strengthening Public Financial Management (PFM) Program to Enable Service Delivery program will support the government’s PFM Action Plan 2016-2021, says WB on Saturday (Jun 29) in a media release.

The program will help improve fiscal forecasting, public budget preparation and execution as well as enhance financial reporting and transparency in the ministry of education, ministry of health, finance division, local government division, roads, public works, and local government.

“An efficient Public Financial Management system is essential for sound macroeconomic management,” said Dandan Chen, World Bank Acting Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan.

“The program will build on the successes of the government’s ongoing efforts to help public agencies strengthen oversight and improve availability of public resources for effective and efficient public service delivery," Chen added.

Monowar Ahmed, Secretary, Economic Relations Division, said the government of Bangladesh is committed to further strengthen the Public Financial Management System and ensure transparency and accountability.

"Bangladesh is a pioneer in having a PFM with built-in disintegration ability in terms of climate, gender, poverty and other development priorities. For example, the government has rolled out climate budgeting across 20 ministries with climate-relevant expenditure. Such PFM sensitiveness ultimately aims that the citizens receive social services effectively and on time,” he said.

The agreement was signed by Monowar Ahmed and Dandan Chen on behalf of the government of Bangladesh and the World Bank respectively at the Economic Relations Division.

In the last two decades, Bangladesh has improved its PFM systems with prudent fiscal management.