During the conflict and transition Liberia's public finances were paralyzed as not enough money was reaching service providers when they needed it, and too much was lost to corruption. The new government pledged to consistently get money to where it is supposed to go-and only to there. USAID called upon IBI to correct the resource allocation process, a task that requires great political sensitivity in a high-risk environment. Within four months, with the help of IBI senior technical advisors, the Bureau of the Budget approved more than 85% of expected allotments, a huge improvement over the previous result of 50%s as reported in previous UN reports on Liberia. Moreover, the new process caught errors quickly and the time needed to process allotments decreased from two weeks to a few hours. This has proved a solid first step in restoring popular confidence that public finance in Liberia can be fair and efficient once again.

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