Figri begins training officers in the new Budget Classification Catalogue

The Externado Finance, Government and International Relations Faculty will train, in the coming months, more than 200 officials, in a joint project with the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, the Swiss Agency for Cooperation, and the firm AECOM.

With the aim of modernizing and improving budget management to achieve an effective and efficient public expenditure with greater transparency, the Ministry of Finance’s National Public Budget General Office, with the support of the Swiss Agency for Cooperation, and AECOM devised an officers’ training project. The program is led by the Externado de Colombia University, its Virtual Education Center, and a team from the of Finance, Government and International Relations Faculty

The project will train 250 staff members of the entities comprising the Nation’s general budget in the new budget classification system. Also, 40 instructors will be trained, who will continue training government officials after the project ends.

According to Sonia Cancino, Coordinator of the Public Finance Management Strengthening Program, the new system was designed in accordance with the international standards set by the International Monetary Fund and adopted by Colombia as part of its strategy to improve public management, in light of its admission to the OECD.

For Claudia Marcela Numba, Deputy Director of Analysis and Budget Consolidation of the Public National Budget General Office of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, this tool will allow officials to have structured and orderly information in the public expenditure cataloging.

In this order of ideas, the course is not only an initiative to modernize and improve budget management for efficient and effective public spending, with greater transparency on the origin and destination of resources, but it also allows officials to have structured and orderly information in the new budget classification system.

Lastly, Walfa Téllez, Project Director, Coordinator of the Master’s in Management for Development, and Professor of the Finance, Government and International Relations Faculty, stated the training project will generate academic spaces of interest to the participating officials and trainers. Also, Professor Téllez warmly welcomed the participants and thanked the team involved in the design of this program.