In these times of global crisis, strong and transparent management of public finances is even more essential. How governments manage their money has a real and immediate impact on peoples’ lives. It affects critical issues such as access to education and whether hospitals have enough trained staff and medical equipment.

We live our lives at a local level, so a country's ability to withstand a crisis depends on local and regional government officials – not just central government – having the capacity to plan, implement and execute public budgets with transparency and accountability, in line with national priorities.

In this text for our 2019 Annual Report, Ricardo Valderrama, Mayor of the Province of Cusco, Peru, offers an insight into the challenges of providing efficient public services in his province and how our team of Public Finance Management experts is helping.

The Provincial Municipality of Cusco has in its hands the government of a city that demands efficiency in public services. We strive every day to provide suitable and high-quality services for the people of Cusco and the thousands of tourists who arrive daily in our city. Their expectations are high and all of us in the public sector do everything we can to meet their demands. Services such as public safety, waste management and urban mobility are among the most important. 

In these efforts, we value greatly the support of consultants of the Subnational Public Finance Management Strengthening Programme of the Swiss SECO Cooperation. They are always by our side. With their help, we are better able to keep our sights set on the ultimate goal of our work. This enables us to achieve the sustainability, technical precision and coordination with the key sectors that we need to carry out our intended reforms.

We hope that this work will continue with those who inherit our efforts. Cusco needs them. We are very grateful to our friends in Switzerland and to the Basel Institute on Governance as implementers of the programme.

Find out more

• Find out more about our Public Finance Management programme in Peru. 
• Visit the programme's GFP Subnacional website (in Spanish).
• Download our 2019 Annual Report.