Hello dear participant !

Welcome to our training workshop on drawing up and updating commitment plans.

In Sequence 2, we defined the notion of a commitment plan, and in this Sequence 3 we’ll be looking at “The characteristics a commitment plan” must meet to be effective.

The commitment plan must be exhaustive, that is:  

• – It must include all categories of State Budget expenditure, without exception.
• – The consumption of all categories of expenditure must be planned through commitment plans, even those relating to participations, rehabilitation and restructuring.

The commitment plan must be binding, i.e.:

• – As a budgetary regulation tool, it must set commitment ceilings for the various expenditure categories of each ministry and institution;
• – Sector-specific commitment plans must be implemented in the budgetary and accounting management information system to ensure that these ceilings are respected.

The commitment plan must be dynamic, that is:

• – It has to be updated at the end of each quarter to take into account changes in expenditure profiles resulting from the cash position plan update.
• – This update is based in particular on an analysis of variances between forecasts and actuals for previous quarters.
• – The current socio-economic conditions (e.g., a sharp drop in the price of an important raw material, or a major climatic disaster) may also require updating.

The commitment plan must be participatory, that is, involving all the entities concerned,

• – At sector ministries level, programme managers are involved as guarantors of the implementation of public policies and the execution of related budgets;
• – At national level, sector ministry officials must discuss with DGB and Directorate General of Treasury officials to define a general profile of the State’s appropriation consumption requirements, in line with resource mobilization capacities, as defined in the cash position plan.

From this sequence, you should note that the commitment plan is exhaustive, i.e. it must include all categories of expenditure in the State Budget; it is binding, i.e. the commitment ceilings it sets are mandatory; it is dynamic, i.e. it must be updated quarterly. Finally, it is participative, meaning that it must include all the entities concerned, both at sectoral and national level.