International Studies Improves Global Fiscal Expertise
at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

In its third year, the Fiscal Policy Training Program expanded its popular summer training series to seven weeks from its original four. A new two-week session was added on fiscal analysis and revenue forecasting, and the fiscal decentralization course added a third week.

The program brings senior public officials from developing and transitional countries to Atlanta for intensive two- and three-week programs on tax issues geared to local governments. Classroom training, workshops and study tours to places like the Georgia Department of Revenue and the DeKalb County Tax Assessor’s Office encourage trainees from all countries to work freely together. Subjects include fiscal policy, public budgeting, tax administration, intergovernmental relations and policy analysis.

Trainees this summer arrived from India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Kenya, Uganda, Indonesia, Venezuela, Guinea and the Bahamas. “Almost every continent is represented,” said Jamie Boex, senior associate of the International Studies Program and a course coordinator. “It is interesting to see the participants work together outside of the politics and relationships of their respective countries.”

Skills learned are proving useful in their home countries. “I am currently assisting the government in reforming the property tax system and was keen to acquire skills on how to graft a good theory of decentralization on to a policy framework for reform,” said participant Vasanth Rao, deputy commissioner in the Commercial Taxes Department in Gandhinagar, Bangalore, India. “The course did this in great measure. Because of its skillful grafting of good theory with reams of hard evidence, I am now able to navigate these techniques more easily in my research.”

Other participants agree. “I consider the AYSPS Fiscal Policy Training Program excellent in terms of capacity building at a global level. This program helps us develop the theoretical and applied base necessary to design and evaluate public sector programs related to fiscal federalism literature and relevant fiscal policy issues,” said Syed Ashraf Wasti, research economist and assistant professor for the Applied Economic Research Center at the University of Karachi, Pakistan, and a summer trainee.

Wasti said that bringing people together from diverse backgrounds (i.e., academicians, planners, government officials) and cultures for this program provided an excellent forum for learning and exchanging views on issues and offered practical, cutting-edge solutions. He said he was impressed by the “extraordinary high quality of the school’s distinguished faculty who not only commanded their subject and considerable international exposure but also are considered authorities in their fields.”

The ISP training courses send participants back to their countries with a much broader perspective on their study topic. “Many of our students are senior-level officials. They come to us used to doing things only a certain way,” said Boex. “Here they find a new kind of international experience; they learn new tools and gain new technical and economic ways of thinking.”

Rao recommends that this program be attended not only by people interested in decentralization, but also by key bureaucrats at the policy level who are looking for “challenges in administration.”

The course content provides rules for decentralization and evaluates various options for reform, yet it does not suggest which option is suitable for a country, notes Rao. “The course gives policy makers at all levels in developing countries the tools to build strong policy framework for decentralization.”

Wasti and others continue to benefit from their training in Atlanta. “…Never before had I returned from any meeting in such a good spirit, full of strength and energy and desire for hard work. The high quality, skillful and organized delivery of lectures together with the interactive, participatory, friendly and sincere atmosphere bringing together people from various disciplines and countries I consider to be the most precious and notable experience of the program,” noted Wasti.

Indian officials in the Summer Training Program included (L to R) S.M. Vijayanand from Kerala, T. Raghunandan from Karnataka and Vasanth Rao from Bangalore.