Mark Zuckerberg to Help African Governments Improve Their Public Financial Management?
Will Facebook's proposed new satellite that will provide additional internet coverage in Africa assist sub-Saharan governments in improving their public financial management (PFM) and fiscal transparency?
Brisbane, Australia, October 12, 2015 (Newswire.com) - PFMConnect, a public financial management consultancy, has just published a blog exploring the current relationship between government finance ministries, social media and PFM. In preparing the blog, PFMConnect examined the use made of Facebook by African government finance ministries and found that eleven of these ministries have active Facebook accounts (Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia).
The present relatively limited use of Facebook by African finance ministries is at a time when Facebook usage in Africa is exploding with the number of African Facebook accounts more than doubling in the eighteen months ended 30 June 2015.
Facebook’s announcement last week of plans to partner with Eutelsat in launching a new satellite called AMOS-6 to provide internet coverage for large sections of West, East and Southern Africa may well accelerate the present rate of growth in social media usage in many sub-Saharan countries. This development must offer significant opportunities in the near future for many African governments for initiating, extending and/or increasing existing social media activities.
The content of many recent African finance ministry Facebook postings is of an economic or financial nature whilst the range of issues covered is quite varied and sometimes adventurous. Several countries now receive a regular flow of public comments, ranging from appreciative to openly hostile.
Finance ministries have to work hard at the moment to win attention in Social Media. At present, finance ministry website visits originating from Social Media are very limited. On the other hand, given the rapid growth in Social Media use, particularly Facebook, there is huge potential for using this communication channel as a gateway to website-based information and online service delivery.
Politicians in some countries have begun to fear Social Media for its capacity to spread discontent and inflame communities. So why should finance ministries choose to use Social Media? We think Social Media offers finance ministries opportunities to increase public understanding of public finance and budgeting, expand the opportunities for engaging the private sector in business partnerships with the government, and even improve the willingness to pay taxes.
Mark Zuckerberg’s satellite announcement is likely to keep Social Media usage growing strongly in many sub-Saharan countries. Perhaps development partners and even private sector investors will soon begin to take an interest in the potential relevance of Social Media to public financial management in an environment where the uptake in Social Media usage is likely to remain strong.
Read PFMConnect’s blog. The blog is now available on our website whilst a shortened version is available on the International Monetary Fund’s Public Financial Management blog.
Note: PFMConnect is a consultancy designed support the development of good standards of public financial management in order to improve public service delivery, extend public accountability, encourage local business development and combat corruption. Its work is principally centred on developing countries, working in cooperation with governments and other stakeholders.
For additional information on PFMConnect, please visit our website or contact david.fellows@pfmconnect.com or john.leonardo@pfmconnect.com (Ph: 61 (0) 7 38903086, Skype: johnleoroaming).
