Regional Conference - Cuentas Claras II : Transparent Government : Leveraging Private Sector Partnerships : Summary of Conference Proceedings (English)
Abstract
The Latin America and the Caribbean region (LCR) suffers from a large financing gap, increasing debt and contingent liabilities, and heightened fiscal risks, leading to the need for new sources of development financing. Given the inability of official...
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The Latin America and the Caribbean region (LCR) suffers from a large financing gap, increasing debt and contingent liabilities, and heightened fiscal risks, leading to the need for new sources of development financing. Given the inability of official development assistance (ODA) to address this gap, the private sector needs to be tapped to invest in development spending. However, greater private sector involvement in such financing is predicated upon the public sector addressing governance issues. The second edition of the LCR regional conference on transparency and accountability, Cuentas Claras, held in Panama City in June 2018. The main objective of this conference was to identify and put into action transparency, accountability, and financial reporting initiatives that can lower investment risks, better leverage the private sector in development spending, and thus maximize financing for development (MFD). The conference aimed at addressing this issue by exploring transparency, accountability, and financial reporting interventions that can improve the investment climate, strengthen domestic financial markets, and promote sound and sustainable financing practices regarding debt sustainability so as to foment greater private sector finance for economic growth in the region. This involves better understanding key issues related to trust in government institutions, transparency, and accountability that were addressed in those two conferences, as well as focusing on specific accounting, auditing, and financial management issues preventing greater private sector involvement in development financing. The Cuentas Claras 2018 marked a milestone in bringing together, on the one hand the World Bank Group, the OAS and the Government of Panama, and on the other, representatives from a wide range of institutions both in the private and public sectors to discuss issues related to the need to increase transparency and accountability in government in order to leverage more private sector financing.
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