Central America Social Expenditures and Institutional Review
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World Bank, Washington, DC
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Social spending in Guatemala needs to
achieve efficiency gains and increase to minimum levels to
meet basic human development objectives. Current levels are
so low that fiscal reform (in revenue generation and
spending allocation) is urgently needed so that the state
can fulfill its mandated coverage and quality in social
service provision. In the last ten years, Guatemala has had
decent economic growth but failed to improve human
development indicators or reduce poverty (which has
increased). Low and inefficient public spending, coupled
with outdated legal and institutional frameworks, are
significant barriers to increasing enrollment and providing
quality education. Moving forward, more efficient,
equitable, and cost-effective public education spending will
require some important policy and institutional changes,
including greater use of the incipient monitoring and
evaluation system. There is need for increased spending in
social assistance interventions, better coordination among
implementing agencies, and revised targeting to ensure
decent coverage of programs among the poorest. On the
institutional side, the launching of the Ministry of Social
Development (MIDES) provided a platform to manage the
different programs of the sector under one umbrella;
however, MIDES has not yet been able to tackle technical
deficiencies in implementation.
Palabras clave
public expenditure, social spending, education spending, health spending, social protection, safety nets, labor policies, policy reform