Our Global Social Responsibility During a Pandemic class=

Our Global Social Responsibility During a Pandemic

Posted on in PFM

Important Questions for a Purpose-Led Public Financial Management (PFM) Business During and After the COVID-19 Crisis

Updated: August 2021

FreeBalance helps governments to improve the management of public finances. This includes relocating priorities, adjusting controls, tracking procurement, auditing transactions, analyzing results, and creating effective reports to international financial institutions thanks to the built-in functionality of the FreeBalance Accountability Suite™.

The pandemic has put significant pressure on public finances. Yet, public finances are part of the solution despite the fact that government fiscal space is still constrained by the 2008 financial crisis. And many governments are unable to report spending interactively, yet fiscal credibility is important for country recoveries.

As a purpose-led business specializing in public financial management (PFM), we feel we have a social responsibility to help governments navigate the COVID-19 crisis. 

What is global social responsibility?

We believe that especially during a major event such as a pandemic, it is the social responsibility of business and government to work together to find innovative, sustainable solutions.

This global social responsibility, or corporate social responsibility (global CSR) as it is often called, is the positive impact a company makes on society. For many companies, this refers to charitable donations and the like. For FreeBalance, however, our social responsibility is part of the DNA of our business. We exist to make the world a better place by improving citizen wellbeing through the implementation of our PFM solutions that combat corruption and enable sustainable growth.

What is FreeBalance’s global social responsibility during a pandemic?

How can we enable public finance improvements during the pandemic? How could we help governments become more fiscally resilient to future economic shocks? This was the challenge from our President and CEO Manuel Schiappa Pietra in late March 2020. 

We formed an innovation team with senior staff from Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America to develop a solutions portfolio. We learned from advice from the ADB, IMF, PEFA Secretariat, World Bank and numerous think tanks. And we engaged with our teams and customers on the ground in both emerging and developed markets around the world.

The result is a set of products and services now available to any government.

Products

  • Emergency Tracking Portal: customized health information and expenditure portal for governments seeking to automate transparency and improve citizen communications effectiveness
  • Government Supplier eServices: online and mobile alert facility for governments seeking to reduce the burden on suppliers and government staff to track invoices, statements, and payments

Services

  • Emergency Fiscal Advice Engineering: as-needed access to the FreeBalance PFM virtual “war room” for governments needing quick access to expert resources during the pandemic response
  • Emergency Sustainability Enablement: emergency PFM advisory engagement for governments seeking to adjust controls, enable reallocations, and improve tracking during the pandemic
  • Public Financial Management Resilience Empowerment: comprehensive phased PFM advisory engagement for governments seeking to mitigate fiscal shocks from the pandemic through and become resilient to future shocks
  • Finance Ministry Continuity Engineering: analysis of critical task regulations, business processes, and information systems to ensure continuity of critical Finance Ministry functions

For more information on how FreeBalance could help your government become more resilient to financial shocks, please get in touch. 

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