In order to compare financial information across companies, organisations,
and public entities, accounting standards and accounting practices have to
be harmonised. For this purpose, first, the International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS) have been developed for the preparation of general purpose
financial statements of profit-oriented entities. However, some governments
also have based their national public accounting standards on IFRS. Second,
the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) provide statistics on financial operations,
financial position and liquidity situation, especially of the general
government sector, and enable analysis of fiscal statistics. Third, public
sector accounting should be harmonised at the global level by adopting
the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). This chapter
describes these three different perspectives in public sector harmonisation
and refers to challenges associated with accounting harmonisation.