Question

The author discusses “3 directions, two time frames, and two criteria” for effective scrutiny. Explain.

This is from the book The Bottom Billion, the question is asking what this quote mean.

Answer 1

A charter on budgeting processes may usefully define oversight from both bottom up and top down. There is a third form of inspection, so to speak, coming sideways: contrast with peers. This is a serious Bottom Billion Strategy. The next concept originated in a framework known as the African Peer Review System, based on the OECD, whereby African countries volunteer for self-assessment. It is also useful within countries, because local governments can be compared and rated against one another. Public agencies dislike these rankings because they generate very strong pressure from both a peer group's embarrassment and users' frustration.

Each of these three screening directions will work ex ante and ex post. Ex ante is about spending authorisation and ex post is about assessment, including surveys on monitoring. Finally, it is important to discuss two very distinct aspects of expenditure: their integrity and their performance.
Reformers typically concentrate on integrity, but performance may be much more critical and their examination demands radically different competences

There is no need to sophisticate a charter for the budgetary scrutiny.It could just spell out these three directions of scrutiny, the two time frames, and the two criteria. It will still take bravery to implement transparency into the bottom billion communities but maybe the presence of an international charter will lower the threshold a little.

Global poverty has been declining for decades, but a few countries are declining behind and falling apart, trapped in four distinct traps (such as the resource curse). Aid is not working well in these areas but there are things that we can and should do because abuse would present a safety nightmare for our children's future.