Agrégateur de flux

In today's edition: AI gigafactories, killing videogames, sovereignty

Parliamentary health committee hears warnings of system failure as population over 65 set to exceed one million by 2030

In today's edition: medical devices, pricing, and wastewater

Deux sujets majeurs se partagent la une des médias ce mercredi 17 juin : d'une part, la ferveur sportive autour de l'entrée en lice des Léopards au Mondial de football 2026 ; d'autre part, la surchauffe politique consécutive aux manifestations de l'opposition et à l'annonce d'une nouvelle marche.

In today's edition: seeds, CMO, budget, livestock

Depuis le début de l'inavsion russe, les relations avec la Roumanie ont pris une dimension plus stratégique. Malgré la montée de l'extrême droite et les tensions autour de la minorité roumaine en Ukraine, les relations entre les deux pays s'intensifient. Entretien.

- Articles / Ukraine, Roumanie, Relations internationales, Questions européennes, Relations régionales, Gratuit

By Warren Krafchik and Paolo de Renzio
Jun 17 2026 (IPS)

In the human body, connective tissue rarely gets the attention given to the heart, lungs or brain. But without it, even the strongest organs cannot function as a system. It binds, supports and connects a healthy body.

Fiscal systems work in a similar way.

Warren Krafchik

For decades, the global public finance community has focused heavily on strengthening the “organs” of fiscal management: finance ministries, budget systems, fiscal rules, audit offices and transparency tools. This work has mattered. Strong public finance institutions are essential to sound fiscal management.

But they are not enough.

The fiscal crisis is already here, and so is the crisis of trust around it. As governments face harder choices over debt, climate costs, slower growth, inequality and public investment, the challenge is no longer simply to balance the books. It is to make fiscal choices more accountable, equitable and trusted by the public.

That cannot be achieved by strengthening finance ministries or other individual institutions one by one. It requires investing in the connective tissue between these institutions: the relationships among legislatures, auditors, courts, civil society, journalists, reformers inside government and citizens that support legitimacy and effective scrutiny.

Case in point: Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa have all strengthened public finance institutions in important ways, yet still face deep challenges around oversight, legitimacy and equity, according to the synthesis paper, Strengthening Fiscal Ecosystems for Accountability and Equity. In each country, formal systems may look strong on paper, but fiscal decisions can still be shaped by political capture, weak scrutiny and unequal access to power.

The reason is that public finance is not simply a technical exercise. It is a political one. Budgets determine who gets health care, education, infrastructure, climate protection and social support. Tax systems determine who contributes and who is spared. Debt decisions can bind future generations. Fiscal choices are among the clearest expressions of a government’s priorities.

Paolo de Renzio

Yet too often, reform has treated accountability as something that can be solved inside one institution at a time. Strengthen the finance ministry. Improve the audit office. Support parliament. Publish more budget data. Each of these reforms can be valuable. But accountability does not happen simply because individual institutions have better rules, mandates or tools.

Accountability happens when those institutions are connected to one another and are able to collaborate. It happens when civic actors can engage them, when media can investigate, when courts can intervene where necessary, when legislatures can scrutinize executive decisions, and when public pressure can turn information into consequences.

Such a “fiscal ecosystem” includes ministries of finance, legislatures, supreme audit institutions, courts, civil society organizations, journalists, reformers inside government, social movements, citizens and the relationships among them. It also includes the informal realities that shape how power actually operates, such as party bargains, patronage networks, institutional rivalries, elite coalitions and unequal access to decision-makers.

This gap between formal rules and real power is where many fiscal reforms fall short. A country may have a budget law that clearly defines the role of parliament, but legislators may lack the independence or capacity to challenge executive choices. A supreme audit institution may produce strong reports, but those findings may go nowhere if the executive does not act on them. Civil society organizations may uncover misuse of public funds, but struggle to get a response from those with the power to impose sanctions.

Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa each followed different reform paths. But across all three cases, especially during crises, accountability often depended not on a single institution performing perfectly, but on formal and informal collaborations forming across the fiscal ecosystem. Auditors worked with communities. Media investigations collected evidence and amplified public pressure. Courts intervened when other institutions fell short. Reformers inside and outside the state found ways to connect scrutiny with action.

These efforts are often fragile. They are also essential.

The global public finance community should draw a clear conclusion. The next phase of fiscal reform must move beyond an institution-by-institution approach, and invest in the relationships, coalitions and channels that connect oversight actors and allow accountability to take root.

For international financial institutions, development agencies and technical assistance providers, this means recognizing that fiscal legitimacy cannot be built through executive capacity alone. Supporting ministries of finance remains important, but it should be matched by greater attention to the institutions, inside and outside government, and the connections between them that balance fiscal power.

For ministries of finance, it means supporting connected oversight systems by responding in a timely way to legislature and audit processes and recommendations and creating additional formal spaces for civil society organizations and communities to contribute to policy choices and implementation. Oversight bodies need pathways for their actions to matter.

For civil society and media, it means ensuring that transparency is not treated as the end goal but as a starting point. Public access to fiscal information is only powerful when citizens, journalists and civic actors have the resources, protections and channels needed to use it.

For philanthropy, the implication is especially urgent. Too much support for accountability work remains fragmented by institution, sector or issue area. Funders have a critical opportunity to invest in the connective tissue executive, oversight, and civic actors that makes fiscal accountability possible. That means supporting civic actors who can follow public money, connect budget decisions to lived experience, work with the ministries of finance and oversight institutions and help communities demand answers when public resources are at risk.

Fiscal reform must therefore be understood as a democratic project, not simply a managerial one. Strong finance ministries are necessary. But they cannot carry the burden of legitimacy alone. If governments want citizens to accept difficult trade-offs, they must build systems where people can see how decisions are made, contribute to those decisions, challenge abuses of power and trust that public resources are being used in the public interest.

The future of fiscal reform will not be won by strengthening one institution at a time. It will depend on building fiscal accountability ecosystems strong enough to keep public finance connected to the public good.

Warren Krafchik is a Public Finance Consultant at the Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative and Co-lead of the Strengthening Fiscal Ecosystems project.

Paolo de Renzio is a Senior Lecturer at the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro, and Co-lead of the Strengthening Fiscal Ecosystems project.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Un grand pas a été fait mardi. Le gouvernement serbe a signé avec le pétrolier hongrois MOL un accord prévoyant la reprise de la part du capital de NIS actuellement détenu par Gazprom. Les négociations se poursuivent avec la Russie, et Belgrade espère que Whashington prolongera le moratoire sur les sanctions.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, Serbie, Economie, Énergie Balkans

Un grand pas a été fait mardi. Le gouvernement serbe a signé avec le pétrolier hongrois MOL un accord prévoyant la reprise de la part du capital de NIS actuellement détenu par Gazprom. Les négociations se poursuivent avec la Russie, et Belgrade espère que Whashington prolongera le moratoire sur les sanctions.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, Serbie, Economie, Énergie Balkans

Also, in Wednesday’s edition: China, Starmer, US trade, ECR

Fur farming is collapsing across Europe. It's unprofitable, unwanted and condemned by science. So why is Greece planning a new farm for 29,000 mink, funded by taxpayers? With Brussels' decision weeks away, the case for a total ban has never been stronger.

A la Coupe du monde 2026, la République démocratique du Congo entre en lice ce mercredi 17 juin face au Portugal, au NRG Stadium (Houston Stadium) à Houston, (Texas, aux États‑Unis). Un match très attendu, car il s’agit d’un vieux rêve derrière lequel couraient les fauves congolais depuis plus d’un demi-siècle. Découvrez les potentialités des équipes du groupes K, dans lequel vont évoluer les Léopards de la RDC.

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