Topic outline

Monitoring public spending devoted to food and agriculture is a critical policy analysis tool to better understand agricultural public expenditure and how it affects agricultural development, food security and economic growth.

This course will equip you with the skills to carry out your public expenditure analysis, looking at total amounts and breakdown of spending. This will allow you to better monitor areas that are underinvested or those that have higher returns on investment, identify budget bottlenecks and prioritize spending, in line with national development objectives. The analysis and results can then be used to shape and influence policymaking on food and agriculture expenditure and investments.

E-WEB-Goal-01.pngE-WEB-Goal-02.pngE-WEB-Goal-11.png

This e-learning course is a technical course on public expenditure on food and agriculture. It is for you if you work in agricultural policy and development. The course is particularly interesting for:

  • Government officials, in particular, economists, policy analysts or researchers in ministries of agriculture, finance or trade.
  • Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) staff
  • FAO policy and technical officers
  • University students/academia

  • The importance of monitoring public expenditure
  • Best practices to collect, organise and classify expenditure data
  • How to carry out your own public expenditure analysis based on the MAFAP methodology

The course consists of 8 lessons, ranging from approximately 30-60 minutes duration each:

  • Lesson 1 - Introduction to Policy Monitoring in Agriculture
  • Lesson 2 - MAFAP Public Expenditure Analysis: Theory and Concepts
  • Lesson 3 - MAFAP Public Expenditure Analysis: Methodology
  • Lesson 4 - MAFAP Public Expenditure Analysis: Data Needs
  • Lesson 5 - Collecting Public Expenditure Data
  • Lesson 6 - Classifying Public Expenditure Data
  • Lesson 7 - Building a MAFAP Public Expenditure Database
  • Lesson 8 - Interpreting Public Expenditure Indicators

The online version of this course runs on the latest versions of the major browsers, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.

The downloadable version only runs on Windows PC’s and no additional software is needed.

Digital certification

This course offers certification. You will get your digital badge upon passing a final exam after completing the course and achieving a grade of at least 75%. Please click on the button below to complete the exam, or refer to our Certification section to learn more.

Evaluate this course

We would be pleased to receive your evaluation of this course, to support us in improving future e-learning courses. Please click on the button below to answer the questions in the form. It should only take you a few minutes!