Financing Strategy for Achievement of the MDGs and Implementation of the Tenth Five Year Plan

This working paper presents an analysis of the strategy required to generate the required resources for investment in various services necessary to achieve the MDGs. The analysis attempts to quantify the fiscal space to finance the MDGs and identify the necessary fiscal reforms required to finance the MDGs in a sustainable manner. The next section outlines the analytical framework used to determine the potential for expanding fiscal space in an economy. Section 3 makes an assessment of overall financing requirements for achieving the MDGs and compares it with the Tenth Plan outlay. Section 4 explores the prospects of domestic revenue mobilisation. Section 5 analyses expenditure trends, its consistency with MDG costing requirements and explores the scope for creating fiscal space by improving efficiency and reprioritisation. Section 6 considers the role of ODA and examines the scope for borrowings (both external and domestic) and section 7 deals with the possibilities of enhancing fiscal space through private sources (FDI, households, public-private partnerships). The last section presents the concluding remarks.