This report surveys the experience of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries with public financial management reform. Drawing upon a variety of sources, including PEFA assessments, country financial accountability assessments, public expenditure reviews, and other documents and reports, and augmented as necessary by interviews with leading reformers, the report seeks to address several major questions.

The questions included: how do MENA countries compare with other comparable countries at similar levels of development with regard to their Public Financial Management (PFM) systems and practices? What has been the substantive content and thrust of PFM reforms in MENA over the last decade? Where have these reforms done well, and where have they struggled? What were the key ingredients for success or failure? And are there lessons in how these reforms were implemented that will be of value to other countries and the donor community?

The study distilled ten principles for implementation of PFM reform in MENA:

1. Know the value and limitations of political economy analysis
2. PFM reform as means and not ends
3. Context matters, so swim with the current
4. The wisdom of muddling through – grand strategy versus incremental change
5. Establish basic systems before contemplating more advanced reforms
6. Whenever possible, keep reforms quick, simple and mutually reinforcing
7. Be wary of large financial management information systems
8. Internal challenges: leadership, coordination, skills and incentives
9. External stakeholders – useful but don’t count on them
10. Lessons for donors: be more strategic, selective, modest and flexible