DOMINICA Effective institutions and systems of public financial management How Disaster Resilient is (PFM) play a critical role in the preparation and response to Dominica’s Public Financial disasters. Strong PFM ties together often scarce available resources with their appropriate and sustainable use to ensure Management? that governments can function reasonably well even in times of disasters. Figure 1: Extent to which disaster resilience and recovery considerations are integrated into key PFM functions and processes. Dominica Regional Average Regional Frontier Full F Advanced A Moderate M Basic B Low L PFM Resource Gender Sensitive Expenditure Information Procurement Public Rules and Planning Resource Tracking Systems and Procedures Investment Regulations Allocation Record Keeping Management Institutional Budget Expenditure Auditing Procurement Procurement Public Asset Arrangements Appropriation Controls Practices Planning Templates and Management for PFM Documents NOTE: The assessment is based on the “Disaster Resilience systems by pinpointing critical PFM policies, practices, foundations; budget appropriation arrangements; financial and Recovery Public Financial Management Review”, and procedures that can be strengthened to improve management controls; procurement arrangements, and developed by the World Bank Group’s Governance Global a government’s capability to respond more efficiently public investment and asset management. Countries Practice, Latin America and Caribbean Team in 2019. It and effectively to disasters, without loss of the integrity assessed in the sample include Antigua and Barbuda, is an analytical instrument that seeks to help countries and accountability. The DRR-PFM review focuses on five Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and build resilient, responsive public financial management key elements of the PFM system: legal and institutional St. Vincent and the Grenadines. KEY STRENGTHS LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK • Capacity to prepare environmental and social and external audits of post-disaster spending. • Defined protocols on who and when impact assessments of budget policies. • Data back-up processes are well-documented, to declare disaster events that have • Existence of contingencies’ fund for unplanned and data are backed-up regularly. implications for accelerated public spending. expenditures arising from natural disasters. • A legal framework that includes flexibilities PUBLIC PROCUREMENT to adjust the budget to finance unforeseen FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT CONTROLS • Clearly defined protocols for emergency disaster expenditures. • Financial management functions are largely procurement in the legislation. segregated to prevent conflicts of interest • Pre-assigned contractors facilitate expedited BUDGET APPROPRIATION and to maintain control over spending in disaster response. • Availability of and access to several funding post-disaster situations. sources for responding to disaster events. • Adequate infrastructure to undertake internal KEY CHALLENGES OPPORTUNITIES LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK Post-disaster budget execution practices are not formalized. No Processes in place to map, streamline, and document steps to expedite collection, documented instructions exist for accelerating disbursements expenditure, accounting for, and management of public funds in post-disaster and the flow of funds in post-disaster situations. situations. National disaster plan is in need of updating. Build on Dominica’s emergency preparedness and response capacity by developing a comprehensive disaster risk financing policy that will provide a national framework for programming and implementing disaster financing. BUDGET APPROPRIATION No operating rules for the contingencies’ fund, including level of Regulations for operationalizing and maintaining the contingencies’ fund. capitalization, accumulation rules, and investment rules. Sex-disaggregated data are not readily available to inform Improvement of gender sensitivity of disaster response resource allocation by resource allocations for post-disaster response. strengthening the collection and use of sex-disaggregated data. FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT CONTROLS Very few performance audits of post-disaster expenditures are Implementation of an audit plan as well as mechanisms to track the carried out to verify economy and efficiency in the use of post- implementation of audit recommendation. disaster funds. Information systems and vital records remain vulnerable to Introduction of a policy to regulate the off-site management of critical ICT disasters due to lack of off-island data storage options. systems and data registers. PUBLIC PROCUREMENT Lack of procurement planning and limited use of data to Strengthening procurement planning by using contingent contracting proactively inform purchasing decisions. strategies. Operating procedures for emergency procurement are largely Creation of an emergency procurement manual or operating procedures or both. undocumented and lack Transparency. PUBLIC INVESTMENT AND ASSET MANAGEMENT Climate-informed selection criteria are not systematically Formal mechanisms established and documented for the appraisal, selection, applied in pre-appraisal of public investment projects. and approval of public investments.