Changing Approaches to Public Expenditure Management in Low-income Aid Dependent Countries

Public expenditure management, Aid management, Public sector reform

Tribesmen and the colonial encounter: Southern Tunisia during the French protectorate1882 to 1940

This thesis focuses on the region's tribes and the changes in their political economy brought about by the Imposition of the colonial state and the penetration of capitalism, the tribesmen are not seen as pawns in a structural transformation but as active participants in the development of their own society. During the Protectorate period a dual economy emerged, differentials of wealth Increased, and many tribesmen were reduced to the position of insecure wage labourers. These processes had their roots in the pre-Protectorate economy but were precipitated by droughts, a growing population, the region's deteriorating terms and balance of trade, colonisation, the state's dismemberment of collective land and its exploitation of the tribal economy through taxation. Despite the state's increasing Intervention and control of tribal affairs the tribesmen continued to regard the state as an alien institution and were slow to participate in the new politics of Nationalism. Similarly, although growing differentials of wealth within the tribes strengthened the tribal political elite it did not allow them to escape from the factional politics of the Pre-Protectorate period. The state prevented its administrators emerging as a class Independent from the tribe by electing them from within their community and by refusing to give them unequivocal support. The colonial state and capitalism did not reconstruct the tribes' political economy according to a European model but interacted reflexively with existing and local structures to create a unique political economy that can only be understood through a detailed regional study

Changing Approaches to Public Expenditure Management in Low-Income Aid Dependent Countries. Discussion Paper, processed

Abstract The present paper critically examines how aid dependent low-income countries have approached the process of public expenditure management reform during the 1990s. It begins with an overview of broader public sector reform initiatives in LDCs which provide the backdrop against which expenditure management reform has taken place. It then assesses progress in six key areas of reform: the role and structure of the State; attempts to improve agency performance; the introduction of resource and expenditure planning tools; measures to improve the governance of public expenditure; the development of new aid management instruments; and finally, recent experiences in improving the poverty reduction impact of public expenditure. It concludes with an assessment of the likely success of these initiatives and the priorities for future interventions

Changing Approaches to Public Expenditure Management in Low-income Aid Dependent Countries

The present paper critically examines how aid dependent low-income countries have approached the process of public expenditure management reform during the 1990s. It begins with an overview of broader public sector reform initiatives in LDCs which provide the backdrop against which expenditure management reform has taken place. It then assesses progress in six key areas of reform: the role and structure of the State; attempts to improve agency performance; the introduction of resource and expenditure planning tools;measures to improve the governance of public expenditure; the development of new aid management instruments; and finally, recent experiences in improving the poverty reduction impact of public expenditure. It concludes with an assessment of the likely success of these initiatives and the priorities for future interventions. [Discussion Paper No.2001/107]publicexpendituremanagement;aidmanagement;publicsectorreform

Effect of Input Resistance Voltage-Dependency on DC Estimate of Membrane Capacitance in Cardiac Myocytes

The measure of membrane capacitance (C(m)) in cardiac myocytes is of primary importance as an index of their size in physiological and pathological conditions, and for the understanding of their excitability. Although a plethora of very accurate methods has been developed to access C(m) value in single cells, cardiac electrophysiologists still use, in the majority of laboratories, classical direct current techniques as they have been established in the early days of cardiac cellular electrophysiology. These techniques are based on the assumption that cardiac membrane resistance (R(m)) is constant, or changes negligibly, in a narrow potential range around resting potential. Using patch-clamp whole-cell recordings, both in current-clamp and voltage-clamp conditions, and numerical simulations, we document here the voltage-dependency of R(m), up to −45% of its resting value for 10-mV hyperpolarization, in resting rat ventricular myocytes. We show how this dependency makes classical protocols to misestimate C(m) in a voltage-dependent manner (up to 20% errors), which can dramatically affect C(m)-based calculations on cell size and on intracellular ion dynamics. We develop a simple mechanistic model to fit experimental data and obtain voltage-independent estimates of C(m), and we show that accurate estimates can also be extrapolated from the classical approach