Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India 2015
Strengthening Institutional Capacity
The Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India is an annual publication on Asia’s regional economic growth, development and regional integration process. It focuses on the economic conditions of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries – Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam –, and also addresses relevant economic issues in China and India to fully reflect economic developments in the region. The Outlook provides an annual update of regional economic trends and policy challenges, and a thematic focus which is specific to each volume. The 2015 edition of the Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India comprises two main parts, each highlighting a particular dimension of recent economic developments in the region. The first part presents the regional economic monitor, depicting the medium-term economic outlook and macroeconomic challenges in the region. The second part consists of three chapters on “institutional capacity”, which is the special thematic focus of this edition.
Key factors to succeed with public sector reforms across Emerging Asia
Centre de Développement de l’OCDE
Recognising the importance of good institutions, recent decades have seen countries in Emerging Asia and around the world take an increased interest in public sector reform. Efforts to improve public financial management (through expenditure and tax administration reforms) and reform government administration (through anticorruption initiatives, civil service reforms, and restructuring and decentralisation) can help to make government more efficient in using scarce resources and more responsive in providing public goods and services. The results of these reforms have varied with circumstance and the ways in which they were implemented. Generally, it can be concluded that public sector reforms are gradual processes that cannot be isolated from broader developments in the public and private sectors. At the same time, good design alone is not usually a guarantee of success, as political economy factors, such as the interests of influential stakeholders, often have considerable influence on the outcomes of reforms.