ABSTRACT
The modernization of government financial management is a central part of the institutional reforms and the modernisation of government in emerging economies. In recent decades, developed and developing countries alike have sought to reform the state and improve public sector governance following various strategies. There have thus been successive waves of reform, following the latest fads in development thinking, first focusing on civil service reform and subsequently on public management reform. The latest wave centres on the budget, both as a key policy process reflecting political arbitrages between competing priorities; but also as a key lever for the structural reform of the state and as a key driver for the modernisation of public sector governance.
