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The OECD-Southern Africa Dialogue was established in 2000 after an exchange of letters between the South African Minister of Finance, Mr. Trevor Manuel, and the Secretary-General of the OECD, Mr. Donald Johnston.
The programme aims to establish a better dialogue between the OECD and the Southern African region, with particular reference to mutual efforts to improve public sector governance, by increasing transparency, accountability and effectiveness in public sector budgeting and management.
The purpose of the dialogue is to support the countries in the Southern African Region in their efforts to improve their public sector governance, in particular by increasing transparency, accountability and effectiveness in public sector budgeting and management.
The Dialogue is established as a partnership between the OECD and the National Treasury in the Republic of South Africa. The Public Management Service (PUMA) serves as Secretariat at the OECD and the Applied Fiscal Research Centre of the University of Cape Town serves as Secretariat in Southern Africa.
The Dialogue is structured around events organised in the Southern African region. These events have one of three forms being seminars/workshops, high-level symposia/conferences and training courses. Further, there is an intention to collaborate on research.
Since its inception in late 2000, five events have been organised:
- A seminar with the South African Parliament on parliamentary scrutiny of the National Budget.
- A seminar on the management and governance of the public sector property portfolio.
- A seminar with the Ministry of Finance, the National Audit Office, on the implementation of constitutional requirements to increase accountability and transparency in financial reporting.
- Amember of the PUMA Secretariat has given a one-week course on international trends in Financial Management for Senior Civil Servants.
- A high-level forum on Social Equity, Economic Growth and Good Governance.
The events have had high-level attendance and good feedback from South Africa as well as from OECD Member Country Experts participating as speakers and facilitators.
This project is part of the OECD's Governance Outreach initiative.
For more on OECD's work in non-member countries, see Centre for Co-operation with Non-Members home page.
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