ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the legal foundations, perspectives about and practices of performance budgeting systems, and the implications of implementation for government capacities and public service performance. It argues that understanding performance budgeting from a more universal view is key to advancing these systems to “perform” better. Efforts that seek to infuse public budgeting processes with valid, reliable cost and performance data as well as an orientation for measuring and contemplating the results of government activities are vital to strengthening public sector fiscal sustainability well into the future. Many systems have evolved from long-standing practice in a particular government while others have been The relational nature of performance budgeting highlights the need for contextual understanding of roles and capacities of key stakeholders in performance budgeting. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
