This included supporting the Government of Iraq in negotiating and finalising a Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF and establishing an implementation unit to coordinate and report on the government’s implementation of the agreed programme.

Focused on making Iraq’s resources deliver the most benefit, our more recent work provided a package of technical support to improve the capacity of the Ministry of Finance for public financial management in general and in particular in terms of national priorities, budget strategy, accounting procedures, audit capability and legislative budget scrutiny. As part of this work we undertook two PEFA-based assessments and saw a marked increase in the level of budget execution at the national and provincial levels.

We worked with the Finance Committee of the Council of Representatives (the national legislature body) to enable them to provide effective oversight of the budget, public accounts and economic policy, as well as the Council of Ministers Secretariat, Ministries of Finance and Planning, alongside the World Bank and US Treasury.