Welcome!,

Firmly rooted within the Netherlands Ministry of Finance, the National Academy delivers practice oriented and topical trainings in the area of public expenditure management to Dutch civil servants. The origins of the National Academy go back to the middle of the eighties last century when Dutch public finances were in a poor state. It took the Netherlands approximately 10 years of full politically supported hard work to change things to the better.

From the start it was acknowledged that training of staff is a modest but indispensible element of this kind of reform processes. In fact, this confirmed what we already knew from our colleagues working for the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration.

Training efforts accompany developments in the area since, think of program budgeting, accrual accounting and changes in the model of highly decentralized government structures.

At the start of the new millennium it became apparent that ministries of Finance in other countries took an interest in the way the Netherlands have organized their public finances. For instance, in a 2005 Report on Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) on Fiscal Transparency, IMF speakes favourably on the Netherlands.

Given a particular interest on Dutch side as well and within the limits of capacity (both in terms of staff and funding), we were and are happy to cooperate with our ministry of Finance colleagues in other countries. Elsewhere on these pages you may read what we can do for you.

Therefore, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the webpages of the Foreign Affairs and Training Department of the National Academy for Finance and Economics and the colleagues working there!

Please feel free to contact us any time if you are looking for assistance to find your solutions for your public expenditure management problems.

Kind regards,

Hans Monnickendam,

Head of National Academy for Finance and Economics,

Deputy Director Budget Affairs,