Presentation notes on the
Latin American budget transparency scorecard
Juan Pablo Guerrero Amparán

Click here to see the original PowerPoint presentation

Budget transparency scorecard for five Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru

·      The origin of this effort: Second Conference held in Cape Town, South Africa.

·      Crucial decision: it is a group effort, work team, all the stages of the project would be reached together

·      The proposal was made by the Mexican organizations and the comments of all the participants (CIDE, Fundar, Equidad y Género)

General Objectives

  • Promotion of transparency of budget and public finances

  • Contribution to greater knowledge of the budget

  • Provision of a new analytical tool useful to social actors affected by budget decisions

  • Empowerment of social control / participation over governmental budget decisions (and budget participation (Precondition)

  • Encouragement of better governmental decisions and public policies (efficient allocation)  (Necessary condition)

  • Fight against corruption and enhancement of accountability (Necessary condition)

Participants
Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Argentina,
Ibase, Brazil,
Universida de Santaigo, Chile,
Universidad del Pacifico, Peru,
Equidad de Genero, Fundar and CIDE, México.

·      Team work throughout the process

·      One coordinator, one assistant

Previous Work

·      Review of other efforts, very useful (IDASA, IMF-Transparency, Transparency International)

·      Although we will do something different that emphasizes the social perception of transparency. This is what distinguishes this effort, the incorporation of the social side of the coin: How is transparency perceived by key social actors?

Project Development

Five stages:

  1. methodology construction and definition of the dissemination strategy (international meeting)
  2. collection of information in each country
  3. codification of information from each country
  4. definition of the regional budget scorecard (international meeting)
  5. dissemination stage

  •  The stages - 10 months (or maybe more because of Peru and Mexico political situations)

  • The importance of dissemination

  • Two international meetings

Work Description
The guide drafts and the project proposal were made in Mexico, pilot test circulated by email.

First international meeting, to discuss the guides. The three guides, to polish the methodology.

First guide: Where and how can transparency be measured. The study of the institutional framework of budget transparency, the formal rules of the game: legal framework, formal role of key actors, analysis of the resources of these actors, etc.  Elements taken into account: Decision making process; Budget legal frameworks; Clarity of roles and functions; Accessibility of information to public; Supervision and independent analysis.

Second guide: This index integrates the social side of the coin: Not only the formal transparency but it’s social usefulness. That is, the extend to which transparency is available, profitable for social actors in order to allow participation, social controls, better resource allocation, less corruption, better accountability. This study will, therefore, reveal the degrees of accessibility of transparency, the access to information, and social capacity to assimilate it.  We will proceed thought: 35 interviews, 60 multiple choice questions, at least nine sectors considered: executive, legislative, sub national government, internal audit, external audit, entrepreneurial, industrial, banking, civil associations, NGO’s unions, mass media, academics.

Third guide: Present the information and construct the national budget transparency scorecard, that will make a fusion of the two previous findings. And general ideas on international comparison.

Work Description

  • Fieldwork - adaptation to national contexts

  • Application of the guides

  • Second international meeting: analysis and discussion to develop the cross-country. The regional / international scorecard will include the 15 support documents from the five countries. It will constitute the explicative document of the regional scorecard, which will be used in the dissemination stage. It will be the base for an illustrative brochure.

  • Dissemination: This brochure will be a hand-out very easy to read and accessible to the public in general and the press and will explain the main components and conclusions of the scorecard.

Expected Products:

  • Three guides for the transparency scorecard formulation

  • Three result documents per country

  • An explicative document that introduces the regional scorecard based on the results of the national scorecards

  • An illustrative brochure with easy language for public dissemination (press conference presentation)

  • Five national scorecards on budgets transparency

  • A regional scorecard on budget transparency for Latin-America