IPSASs and Governmental Accounting of Developing Countries

Abstract

With the purpose of reaching ambitious socioeconomic goals, developing countries need to evolve their institutional capacity in the public sector to establish and implement public policies, which, on their turn, prescind a reform in its government accounting. The social value of reform in government accounting lies, therefore, in its contribution to the development goals, including decrease of poverty. This grounding has lead international and multilateral donors and funders to endorse the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) and its compliance by developing countries. The emphasis on ensuring financial integrity and the change to the accrual accounting can make the IPSAS more useful in reforming the public accounting in developing countries.