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About the Project
Activities
The
IBP achieves its objectives through five major activities:
Providing training and technical assistance
Measuring and advancing transparency and participation in the budget Ensuring adequate funding for civil society budget work Acting as a hub of information on civil society budget work Building international and regional budget
networks
Providing training and technical assistance:
The IBP provides
comprehensive introductory training for individuals and groups new to budget
work, and is presently developing advanced training seminars and materials.
When in-depth support is required, the IBP provides technical assistance
tailored to a specific organization or issue.
Over the past two
years, the IBP has provided training and technical assistance to more than
2,200 people from 60 countries [*]. It has also provided on-site
technical assistance to organizations in more than 15 countries in Africa,
Asia and Latin America on a variety of issues, including using the budget
to monitor economic, social and cultural rights and government efforts to
curb human trafficking. IBP
training is supported by its own materials that have been translated into
several languages and are widely used as basic texts for budget training by other organizations. The IBP's basic text A Guide to Budget Work for NGOs - is available in Arabic, English, Russian, and Spanish. A Guide to Tax Work is now available in English and A Guide to Tracking Budget Expenditures will be available shortly. The IBP has also developed an innovative budget simulation game for training purposes that allows participants to apply the analytical, advocacy, and organizational skills learned during training.
Measuring and advancing budget transparency and participation in the budget process: Given that access to budget information and opportunities to participate in the budget process are major obstacles to budget work, the IBP has designed and implemented a comparative measurement tool - the Open Budget Initiative (OBI) - to assess the public availability of budget information across countries. IBP has worked with independent groups to apply the methodology in 59 countries and plans to expand coverage in the next two years.
The OBI is an independent assessment of public access to budget information from the perspective of civil society organizations. The OBI also covers other budget transparency issues in order to explore ways of improving public understanding and involvement in the budget. The instrument is intended as a research, training, and advocacy tool to encourage greater understanding and advocacy on budget transparency.
The IBP also conducts regular research to track new developments and methods in budget work. It produces an annual report on the level of U.S. foreign aid and has pioneered research on the role of legislators and auditors-general in the budget process.
Ensuring adequate funding for civil society budget work: When the IBP was launched many donor agencies were openly skeptical of an
effective role for civil society in public budgeting. From its inception,
the IBP has therefore made it a priority to build the case for and raise
the profile of civil society budget work among multilateral and bilateral
donors, in addition to raising the potential for budget work with
international civil society networks.
The IBP has worked with civil society and donor partners to launch a granting project and facilitate greater investment in applied budget work. In 2004 the Civil Society Budget Initiative (CSBI) was formed as a donor and civil society partnership that aims to nurture budget analysis and advocacy capacity in civil society organizations in low-income countries. CSBI is particularly interested in supporting organizations that envisage building budget-focused work as a core part of their strategic vision in countries where the environment is conducive to initiating this work. To this end, CSBI provides a combination of financial, technical, and learning/networking support to nascent budget groups by drawing on the capacities of established budget groups around the world.
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Acting as a hub of
information on civil society budget work:
The IBP provides the most comprehensive and widely used sources of
information on budget groups and budget work around the world. The IBP
website receives over 200,000 hits per month and provides a database of 89
active budget groups in 43 developing and transition countries, an
extensive annotated electronic library, and specialized sections dedicated
to themes, such as budget transparency.
The IBP bi-monthly newsletter is published in English, French, Russian, and Spanish
and received by over 2500 people in 145 countries. The newsletter keeps
civil society and donor subscribers abreast of trends in budget work,
innovative projects, and recent literature.
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Building international and regional budget network:
In addition to supporting individual organizations, the IBP works to build
international and regional networks of budget organizations. For this
purpose, the IBP has focused on building regional partnerships in Africa,
Latin America and Asia as regional nodes in the emerging international
network. The IBP also ensures that all its activities are designed and
conducted in ways that increase collaboration between groups. Further
specific efforts to build budget networks include information exchange
through the IBP website and bi-monthly newsletter, the convening of
international and regional conferences and seminars, and, most recently,
the establishment of the IBP Strategic Advisory Committee. In the next
two years, the IBP will focus on supporting its current partners to
develop regional networks in Africa, Latin America and South Asia; while
directly initiating work in regions, such as South East and Central Asia,
and Central America where budget work is emerging more slowly.
Rationale
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