Methodological guidelines for tracking public agricultural expenditure with illustrations from Zambia

Abstract

The signing of the Maputo Declaration in 2003 by African Union member states requiring them to allocate 10% of national budget to agriculture, necessitates a framework or system that tracks how much is being spent, where it is being spent, what it is being spent on and for whom, and how it has changed over time in relation to the set targets. This paper provides such a framework and illustrates its use using data from Zambia. It provides a concept and practical information to facilitate tracking of national public expenditure on agriculture. Data on public expenditure on agriculture are available from government budgetary records. Knowledge of the public agricultural system is argued to be an essential first step in tracking expenditures. The paper identified actors, functions of actors and relationships among actors within the public agricultural system. An additional proposed tool is a set of classifications of expenditures on agriculture enable grouping of different expenditures into policy-relevant dimensions. Documentation of all procedures and decisions made will help analysts employing similar measurements conduct comparisons over time and across boundaries and set the stage for sharing ideas and experiences, which eventually improve the standards of measuring public expenditure on agriculture. Key words: Methodological guidelines, public spending, tracking, Zambia.