Introduction

This note presents a series of charts which provide an overview of the Cook Islands’ recent public financial management (PFM) performance based on this country’s 2015 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment. Comparisons are made between the Cook Islands’ performance and the performance of the other twenty-three countries that had PEFA assessments published in 2014-2015. All analyses have been prepared using results reported from using the 2011 PEFA methodology.

Overall PFM performance

Individual country PFM performance has been determined by applying the following points scale to reported individual performance indicator (PI) scores as presented in Table 1. No points were allocated to PIs that were not scored because either data was unavailable, a D score was given or the PI was not applicable.

Table 1: PI scoring methodology

PEFA PI score	Points allocated
A	3
B+	2.5
B	2
C+	1.5
C	1
D+	.5
D	0

The graph in Figure 1 below shows the Cook Islands’ overall score was ranked 7th out of the twenty-four countries.

 Figure 1: Aggregate PEFA scores for 24 countries

Details of the distribution of overall country scores across PFM performance categories, as determined by PFMConnect, are presented in Table 2. The Cook Islands’ overall score was 50 points.

Table 2: Distribution of country PFM performance levels

PFM performance	Overall Scores	Number of countries
Very strong	66.37-84	0
Strong	49.57-66.36	8
Moderate	32.77-49.56	7
Weak	15.97-32.76	8
Very weak	0-15.96	1
Total		24

The Cook Islands’ overall PFM performance is classified as “strong”.

PI performance

The graph in Figure 2 below shows the scores for the Cook Islands’ individual PIs compared with the average score recorded for each PI across the twenty-four PEFA assessments we have studied. Please note that no scores were recorded for the top three indicators in Figure 2 as two indicators (PI-21 and PI-28) were given D scores in the PEFA assessment whilst one indicator (PI-15) could not be scored.

 Figure 2: Cook Islands PI score comparisons

Download a pdf version of Figure 2 here (Cook Island PIs) to review individual PI scores in more detail.

Twenty-seven PIs were assessed. Nineteen PIs had scores above the country average, one PI had a score equal to the country average whilst seven PIs had scores below the country average.

Performance across key PFM activities

The graph in Figure 3 below shows the average scores for the six key PFM activities compared with the average score recorded for these activities across the twenty-four country PEFA assessments we have studied.

 Figure 3: Cook Islands key PFM activity comparisons

Five key PFM activities recorded scores above the country average whilst one activity recorded a score below the country average.

PEFA ASSESSMENT

You can download the 2015 PEFA assessment for the Cook Islands here.