Public Sector Accounting in Developing Countries: What We Know and What we Still Need to Know in General and in the African Context in Particular

Abstract

This review paper examines the achievements, unintended consequences and the changing contexts of public sector accounting reforms in developing countries. In so doing, it points to two important directions for advancing public sector accounting research in developing countries in general and Africa in particular. Firstly, it suggests moving away from the narrow technical contextualisation and the ‘consultancy-based functionalist’ approaches offered by New Public Management (NPM) over the last three decades. Secondly, it advocates rethinking the imposition of the Word Bank’s development discourses on developing countries and applying the notion of ‘development’ as more of an analytical concept that can capture the idea of ‘publicness’, rather than as a phenomenon specific to a developing country context. This may enable public sector accounting research to implicate public value through accounting, which could have lasting impacts on developing countries’ societal and economic development.