DevTech provided resident, long-term technical assistance in budget reform and institutional strengthening under the Support for Economic Growth and Fiscal Reform (SEFR) activity, a task order under the SEGIR Economic Policy IQC.

The project includes two phases.

Phase I: During the first 18 months, DevTech assisted the Ministry of Finance to reform its budget process. DevTech provided a Budget Advisor, who helped the Ministry of Finance design and incorporate policies, procedures, and programs that ensured all government ministries develop and execute balanced budgets that reflected their respective short-, medium- and long-term strategies, priorities, objectives. The Budget Advisor trained various line-ministries with strategic planning and helped build ministries’ staff capacity with regards to program- or performance-based budgeting (PPB). DevTech also helped the Ministry of Finance establish a more effective structure of revenues and expenditures, consistent with the new functions of government in the market economy.

Phase II: In 2003, the project shifted focus from federal ministries to the sub-national level. DevTech began promoting fiscal decentralization and equitable allocation of resources, and trained local officials to increase their expertise and capabilities in budgeting and financial management. The Senior Budget Advisor, based in Khmelnytsky, became Chief of Party. As such, he assisted local governments in Lviv and Poltava to improve their financial position through PPB, which led to more autonomy and accountability. DevTech led a nationwide budget training to raion and subraion finance officers, focusing on the opportunities and requirements Ukraine’s new Budget Code mandated. Three oblasts and their cooperating jurisdictions used PPB for their 2005–2007 budgets, thus demonstrating a capacity to implement improved budgeting approaches. They were therefore selected to participate in an intense training program of seminars, workshops, and mini-trainings, which served as a PPB Pilot Project to be replicated on a wider scale. DevTech also provided critical technical input into the extension of the Budget Code to lower levels of local government, specifically to subraion levels.