National budgets in SSA have major impacts on macro, sectoral and micr
o economic results simply by being very large relative to total demand
and also to supply of most human investment services and of infrastru
cture. Together with programming for specific policy goals (including
balance, redistribution, non-inflationary finance of necessary expendi
ture), these automatic impacts are more likely to be positive if analy
sed and specifically taken into account in policy formulation. While m
ore sophisticated analysis and holistic expenditure and revenue measur
e conceptualization is needed in SSA, both data quality and operationa
l constraints require simple programmatic (including tax) formulation
and operation if either policy or budget results are to improve.