t-oriented economy. These reforms are designed to improve government decision making and accountability, and the cost-effectiveness of service delivery. The intent is to redesign the structure of the public sector, and to remove old institutional arrangements and ingrained habits derived from the earlier period of centralised planning that are major obstacles to improving efficiency and accountability. The nature of the public administration reforms in Mongolia is influenced in part by the perspective that has guided reforms in New Zealand since 1988.In January 1997, the mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) visited Mongolia to carry out the preparatory work for the new Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility agreement between the IMF and the Government of Mongolia and prepared an aide-memoir with recommendations with regard to the public administration reforms. According to the assessment by the mission the primary emphasis of the public administration reform do date appears to have been on organisational and administrative change and has not been linked to reform of the budget process and public expenditure management considerations are not well reflected in the current statement of policy. Also the Ministry of Finance appears to play a relatively small role in its implementation. The main recommendations of this mission to the Government of Mongolia concerning the public administration reform were the following:The Ministry of Finance (MoF) should immediately take on a central role in further development of the public sector reforms and these reforms should be integrated with the budget process by taking into account budget constraints and the need for improved financial accountability. Devolution of financial powers to agencies (along the lines of the New Zealand model) should proceed only to the extent that systems of accountability fully satisfactory to the MoF are in place (IMF 1997). The IMF mission...
