Economic Policy & Governance

Sound Policies Design and Administration to Maximize Economic Growth.

 

We provide on-demand customized solutions to a wide range of clients to help them respond and adapt to difficult fiscal and economic environments and to manage complex macroeconomic risks. 

For over seven decades, Nathan has provided rigorous macroeconomic and fiscal analysis, built robust capacity for evidence-based economic policymaking, and strengthened sustainable and effective mechanisms that enhance transparency, incorporates stakeholder input into policymaking, elements that lead to good economic governance.

We maximize impacts by helping policymakers, private sector partners, and development stakeholders make informed decisions based on objective economic principles and international best practices.

 

Where We Work

  • ▶  Domestic Resource Mobilization
  • ▶  Public Financial Management
  • ▶  Sub-National PFM and DRM
  • ▶  Public Investment Management
  • ▶  Economic Analysis
  • ▶  Macro Fiscal Forecasting
  • ▶  Decentralization and Good Governance
  • ▶  Sectoral Analyses Services
  • ▶  Organizational Transformation Development, Capacity Building, and Training
  • ▶  Impact, Monitoring and Performance Evaluation

 

We provide our clients with rigorous yet practicable solutions to tackle their pressing development needs ranging from broad macroeconomic policy analyses to strengthening the capacity of public administration. [With a global footprint, we extensively work in Asia, Africa, and in the Pacific Island Countries.

We have unparalleled deep bench of in-house expertise and knowledge to rapidly respond to our clients’ changing needs supporting USAID, MCC, US Treasury, and DFAT. 

 

Project Highlights

 

|| Bolstering economic governance  

Nathan is helping Burma create more inclusive and transparent economic governance processes, and increase access to finance by working with reform champions within civil society, private sector, parliament, and government to advocate for or implement appropriate policies, laws, regulations, and processes. Nathan assisted Indonesia to improve laws, policies, regulations and procedures for non-bank financial institutions, labor markets, and trade by providing strategic support to the Ministry of Trade, National Development Agency, Ministry of Finance, and the Poverty Unit of the Vice President’s Office.

 

|| Macroeconomic policy and debt management  

Nathan worked with the Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Unit to strengthen its capacity for fiscal and monetary policy formation. Nathan drafted a debt strategy for the Honduran Central Bank and Ministry of Finance, and provided technical assistance to the Government in the Gambia on improving their design of debt instruments, and operationalizing their debt management strategy. We also improved the analytic capacity of Zimbabwe’s Aid and Debt Management Office, and advised on the country’s medium-term debt strategy. Nathan also advised the Government of Mozambique on its creation of a sovereign wealth fund.

 

|| Assessing macroeconomic impacts 

Nathan supported the South African Treasury to use Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling to forecast the distributional impacts of government policies. We also worked with the National Treasury to model the macroeconomic effects of HIV/AIDS. We trained staff at the Indonesian Ministry of Trade in the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) software and CGE model to analyze impacts of changes in trade policies to the economy.

 

|| Improving tax policy 

In Egypt, Nathan developed a training series for the tax policy unit to improve their capacity to analyze changes in tax policy, and to improve revenue forecasting techniques. In Ghana, Nathan helped develop the country’s first-ever medium-term revenue policy, setting out the changes needed in revenue policy and administration needed to achieve the country’s revenue goals.

 

|| Expanding domestic resource mobilization (DRM)  

Nathan supported the Uganda Revenue Authority to improve taxpayer education, registration, compliance and arrears management. As a result, tax debt collection grew by about US$7 million from 2017 to 2018, and the international taxation office resolved a long-running audit case, generating an estimated US$10 million in the first year and US$5 million annually going forward. In Guyana, Nathan streamlined systems for tax filing and payment processing, and supported the implementation of a new Value Added Tax. Nathan is the only firm to collaborate with USAID, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to implement Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT) assessments across Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Nathan also designed and launched USAID’s new Collecting Taxes Database, providing information on more than 200 countries’ tax systems.

 

|| Public service reforms 

Nathan analyzed Malawi’s public sector compensation structure and supported functional reviews of the health and education sectors. In Tanzania, Nathan drafted a white paper providing a blueprint for a new public service reform program informed by a careful political economy analysis.

 

|| Public expenditure planning and management  

In Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Egypt, Nathan supported implementation of program budgeting, which helps government better align resources to its development priorities. In the Maldives, Nathan is helping to establish the basic budgeting framework, including advising on their appropriations law and budgeting formats. In Uganda, Nathan identified and addressed expenditure bottlenecks that were inhibiting the implementation of the health sector budget, improving their budget execution rate from 79.9 percent to 97.0 percent in two years.

 

|| Transparency, accountability, and anti-corruption

Nathan helped the Government of Sri Lanka improve public sector audit and procurement. Our support enabled the new independent procurement regulator to become functional; developed more than seven manuals or tools to improve audit and procurement; helped the government develop nine significant regulatory or legal reforms, including a new Audit Bill and several cabinet circulars; and provided 3,000+ person days of training on audit and procurement. This improved the transparency and oversight of government finances, and the effectiveness of spending. In Guyana, Nathan strengthened parliamentary fiduciary oversight committees by training staff and helping institute policy reforms. In Zimbabwe, Nathan prepared an Economic Literacy Toolkit and Handbook for Parliamentarians, improving the legislature’s ability to hold the executive accountable on Public Financial Management (PFM).

 

|| Program monitoring and evaluation (M&E) 

Nathan manages UK DFID’s Girls Education Challenge Fund, which leverages M&E data to identify and reward innovative and effective approaches using a payment by results model. Nathan set up a rigorous M&E framework that uses methods such as randomized control trials and quasi-experimental research to identify good practice, enable learning, and promote effective approaches.

Interested to learn more? Read our brochure