Turning an unfunded aspiration into a government-owned financing plan with explicit budget commitments.
THE CHALLENGE
Every government wants to do more than its budget allows. The critical question is rarely 'what should we fund?' but 'what can we actually fund, and how do we create room for more?' Without a rigorous answer, ambitions collide with fiscal reality.
A government had adopted an ambitious national social protection strategy but had no credible financing plan. External financing was set to decline, and the ministry of finance was unconvinced the system could be sustained within available fiscal space.
NXA led a full fiscal space analysis using the diamond framework, costed the strategy's scale-up scenarios, and modelled financing pathways combining domestic reprioritisation, revenue measures, and efficiency gains. We facilitated validation workshops with both the social and finance ministries.
The analysis showed that a phased scale-up was fundable within five years through a combination of modest reprioritisation and revenue reform — but only if sequenced correctly. A simultaneous launch of all components was not affordable; a sequenced one was.
A costed, sequenced financing strategy endorsed by both the social development and finance ministries, with a clear domestic resource mobilisation pathway and a defined role for transitional external financing.
The strategy moved from an unfunded aspiration to a government-owned financing plan with explicit budget commitments — turning a document into a fundable programme.
"A document became a fundable programme — with the fiscal space analysis cited as the basis for the decision."