The National Academy is a training institute with more than 20 years of experience in the field of Public Finance, Audit and Economics. All Dutch ministries make use of the range of practice orientated courses offered by the National Academy. The National Academy is part of the Budget Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Finance. Its main clients (Financial Economic Affairs Directorate and Internal Audit Directorate of the line ministries) are represented in the Client Council. The courses offered by the National Academy for Finance and Economics are up-to-date and practice orientated. Nearly all course lecturers have a full time job in the field of public finance within central government. They are familiar with the course material on the basis of their daily work.

The knowledge and experiences brought together in these courses is also available for foreign ministries of Finance. As of 2001, the Dutch Ministry of Finance has received a growing number of requests to assist mainly ministries of Finance in other countries introducting and implementing reforms in public finances. In view of the international recognition of the Dutch public finance system as “best practice” (OECD 2001; IMF 2006) and taking into account a clear Dutch interest, the Dutch Ministry of Finance is favourably disposed towards such requests. In response to these requests, the services offered may vary case by case, according to the needs. Of course, in meeting requests of the sort our capacity is limited and we therefore have to prioritize.

The National Academy operates on the basis of cost effectiveness. This implies that we are output financed, the funding generally provided for by EU (e.g. twinning-projetcts, Taiex), by Dutch organisations (e.g. ministry of Foreign Affairs) or by applying countries themselves.

The next pages inform you on the countries we work with, the kind of services we offer and on how these services are delivered. A specialty is the summercourse that we have organized each year as of 2007. Scrolling through the pages you will find a list of performed projects and programs of executed summercourses. Key documents (e.g. policy papers, regulations) are available under downloads.

For further information, please contact us: send an e-mail to Rijksacademie@minfin.nl or call us at 0031-70-342 4933 / 4978.