Kyrgyz Republic - Public expenditure review policy notes : public investment management

Weaknesses in the public investment management (PIM) system may limit the gains from higher public sector investments in the Kyrgyz Republic. Capital spending has averaged 6.4 percent of GDP since 2010, up from 4.6 percent of GDP between 2005 and 2009, with significant investment in the energy sector and roads. Still, it remains unclear to what extent these investment decisions reflect the country's and sector priorities. Few projects, with the exception of donor-financed projects are subject to rigorous appraisal and there is no systematic procedure in place to monitor implementation progress. As a result, projects are often delayed or stalled and cost over-runs are frequent. Donor-financed projects, which comprise the bulk of public investment, are subject to relatively more rigorous project cycle management; however, they too face some of the same weaknesses. The rest of the note is structured as follows: section two provides a diagnosis of the public investment portfolio, including the structure of expenditures, the quality of the data, and a quantitative assessment of the efficacy and effectiveness of the public investment portfolio. The assessment builds on previous work on public investment in the Kyrgyz Republic, in particular the Public Investment Diagnostic undertaken in 2012 under the Capacity Building in Economic Management (CBEM) project. Section three reviews the institutional and administrative framework of PIM in Kyrgyz Republic. This draws largely from the draft Investment Diagnostic Report prepared in December 2012 using the eight key 'must-have' features of a well-functioning public investments framework proposed in Rajaram et.al. (2011). Finally, section four includes a summary of the findings and detailed recommendations on improving PIM.