By Ian Gary, Director, Power & Money, Oxfam America— May 29, 2020
In this guest post, Oxfam America’s Ian Gary says governments must open up their budgets to public scrutiny when billions of dollars are flowing to end the crisis.
María José Eva, Jason Lakin & Sally Torbert, IBP— May 21, 2020
Why should organizations focused on maternal health in rural communities, or access to education for kids with disabilities, or the provision of water and sanitation in slums be concerned about a lack of information in budget documents? This post dives into the answers and explores why key budget documents are so critical.
Tim Jones, Head of Policy, Jubilee Debt Campaign— May 19, 2020
Countries around the world are facing an unprecedented debt crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a rise to the largest capital outflow from developing countries ever recorded. In this post, Tim Jones of the Jubilee Debt Campaign proposes a series of measures to make lending more transparent and responsible.
Jamie Drummond, Global Strategist: The Global Goals and Co-Founder: ONE — May 12, 2020
As the world’s scientists race to find a vaccine for COVID-19, and governments scramble to fund emergency responses, we must apply openness to enable journalists, civil society, and citizens to “follow the money,” promote government financial accountability, improve service delivery and rebuild civic trust.
Sally Torbert, Open Budget Initiative Program Officer, IBP— May 07, 2020
Vast sums of public money are being mobilized and diverted to fund COVID-19 emergency measures and most countries’ budget accountability systems have gaps even when they operate under less extreme conditions. The latest Open Budget Survey, released last week, finds that some of the weakest aspects of budget transparency and oversight are the ones that will be most critical for monitoring public resources during this emergency.
By Vivek Ramkumar, Senior Director of Policy, IBP— Apr 30, 2020
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, IBP released the 2019 Open Budgets Survey (OBS), the world’s only independent and comparative measure of budget transparency and accountability. The COVID-19 crisis demands quick and massive interventions from governments and other actors characterized by honesty, transparency, engagement, and public trust – the very objectives that drive the OBS.
Alexandre Ciconello, IBP senior program officer— Apr 07, 2020
Crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic often put civil society organizations on the front lines of response, filling the gaps governments cannot or will not fill. Two IBP partners in Latin America stepped up to acting lead in their communities.
Warren Krafchik, IBP executive director— Apr 07, 2020
Government budgets are undergoing rapid shifts in allocations during the pandemic. And the rush to act may tempt some leaders to forego informing and engaging the public on the steps they take. They shouldn’t.
Albert van Zyl, IBP South Africa country manager— Apr 07, 2020
As governments fight the COVID-19 pandemic, poverty-stricken communities are often neglected in the response. That is true in South Africa, where the residents of informal settlements are too often “invisible.” However, IBP South Africa and its partners stepped in to change that.
Samuel Atiku, Senior Project Officer, SPARK, Nigeria, Chloe Cho, Research Analyst, and Jason Lakin, Senior Research Fellow — Mar 12, 2020
In 2019, the Nigerian government took an important step toward greater fiscal transparency by launching the Open Treasury web portal, promising to create opportunities for greater scrutiny of low budget execution. However, IBP’s analysis shows that several improvements need to be made to make the portal a robust and user-friendly tool to analyze government budget information.