The Dominican Government, through the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, held a meeting with a mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to initiate the implementation in the country of a Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA) and a Public Investment Management Assessment on Climate Change (C-PIMA).
PIMA is a comprehensive framework for assessing infrastructure governance practices for countries at all levels of economic development. This assessment analyzes 15 dimensions involved in the three stages of the public investment cycle: planning, resource allocation and project implementation.
While C-PIMA adds a climate dimension and assesses the capacity of countries to manage climate-related infrastructure. This assessment will identify areas for improvement in public investment processes, for greater efficiency in the use of public resources.
The Minister of Economy, Pável Isa Contreras, inquired in detail about the results of the indicators and tools used in these evaluations, which have been applied in 93 countries in the case of PIMA and 40 in the case of C-PIMA.
In addition, the Minister of Finance, José Manuel Vicente, said that the international organization can count on the full support of the Dominican Government to implement this initiative in order to improve decision-making, as well as the control and monitoring of public investment.
In turn, the Minister of the Environment, Miguel Ceara Hatton, recalled the importance of government entities acting in a coordinated manner in the face of this type of technical assistance.
Virginia Alonso Albarrán, Senior Economist in the IMF’s Public Financial Management Division, explained that the efficiency gap in public investment management in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is 29% compared to the most efficient countries, a figure similar to that of emerging markets.
He argued that in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and advance as planned towards the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, the average annual capital cost for LAC would be 3.4% of the regional gross domestic product (GDP) until 2030.
She noted that infrastructure investment needs are somewhat lower in LAC than in other regions to achieve the SDGs, but substantial.
The economist argued that, on average, better infrastructure governance could offset more than half of the observed efficiency losses and reiterated the need to strengthen infrastructure governance to reduce this gap.
The meeting, held virtually, was also attended by the Director General of Public Investment of the Ministry of Economy, Martín Francos, and the Director General of Budget of the Ministry of Finance, José Rijo Presbot.
Source: presidencia.gov.do
