Thursday, August 21, 2008
Presentation on Effective Financial Management
During my three weeks in Mongolia I will be giving two presentations. The first one took place today and was entitled "Effective Financial Management". I widened the presentation to include some information about the health system in Ireland and also to talk about what I have learned in my time here so far.
The talk was attended by the director of the CHDU and the senior team, including the Head of Finance. I discussed issues such as budget planning, predicting the growth of current expenditure, how to justify new investment, Whole-life Costing, Budget monitoring and Auditing of Expenditure.
I also pointed out some issues with the current set-up, including:
The way that the health district gets funded is too complex
There is little autonomy for making financial decisions internally
There is little transparency as to how new investment is approved
The share of government spending on health, at 4.5% of GDP, is very low by international standards.
My presentation on Effective Financial Management
The presentation went on for about an hour and a half, and the conversation and questions continued over lunch afterwards.
I think the presentation was generally well-received. I meet with the Head of Finance in the morning to clarify some issues. The main thing is that we have identified the main issues facing the health unit, so now it should be possible to suggest some potential improvements.
The talk was attended by the director of the CHDU and the senior team, including the Head of Finance. I discussed issues such as budget planning, predicting the growth of current expenditure, how to justify new investment, Whole-life Costing, Budget monitoring and Auditing of Expenditure.
I also pointed out some issues with the current set-up, including:
The way that the health district gets funded is too complex
There is little autonomy for making financial decisions internally
There is little transparency as to how new investment is approved
The share of government spending on health, at 4.5% of GDP, is very low by international standards.
My presentation on Effective Financial Management
The presentation went on for about an hour and a half, and the conversation and questions continued over lunch afterwards.
I think the presentation was generally well-received. I meet with the Head of Finance in the morning to clarify some issues. The main thing is that we have identified the main issues facing the health unit, so now it should be possible to suggest some potential improvements.
# posted by Senator Dominic Hannigan @ 10:16 AM 
