Moving Forward:
the Future of Our Work and the Network

A broad variety of groups and organizations are part of the International Budget Project network, all undertaking budget work in different forms and contexts.  The conference provided a good opportunity to consider together the future direction of the work, in relation to the issues and themes brought out at the conference.  On the last day the question was posed: where is our work going in our own organizations, and how should the IBP respond.  Discussions centered around the three areas of Research, Information Exchange and Communication and Education, Training, and Capacity-building.

Rocío Campos, Vinod Vyasulu and Isaac Shapiro 
summarizing the discussions

Research:  
A list of issues and themes into which joint research or collaboration could be sought was generated by the group, and listed below.  However, the potential scope of the work outweighs the capacity and mandate of the IBP, and some more fundamental conceptual questions need to be tackled in order to clarify the direction and function of the group.  

• Where does the international element add value to our individual work?  

• What are the shared basis and values which frame our collaboration?  

• What structure would be most effective and enabling for the diverse elements of the network?

In thinking through these questions, several distinctions arose.  

• Collaborative research across international borders or researching on issues which only occur at international level.

• Studying the budget as a public policy issue or issue work with analysis as a tool. 

•  Issues that the IBP can cover exclusively and others where input should be peripheral to other networks.

… capacity of IBP to enable and facilitate the work:  the type of work and relationships which the IBP can facilitate depend very much on the structure and identity of the organization.  It was suggested that the network needs to be more participatory in order to facilitate and advocate for participation.  What structure would be most appropriate for advocacy work?

•  IBP might think about decentralizing more.  There could be nodes of activity around common themes, such as human rights and gender, within and across regions.  The groups could be coordinated by individuals from different parts of the network with the IBP acting as the hub supporting these spokes.  In this way international conferences can offer the opportunity to catch up on the work of different sectors.

• A decentralized network would benefit from all groups sharing a common activity or product, derived from work that members are already doing, and tied into an advocacy effort with a clear advocacy agenda.  We need to look for opportunities, such as the UN Summit on Financing for Development, and tie in with other networks and groups.  Something extremely simple at local level can have a great impact consolidated to international levels, providing a unified voice to hammer home messages to our advocacy targets, such as the World Bank.

• The network can operate on various levels, more formal research groups and less formal discussions and conversations around themes, undertaking research and defining methodologies. Many groups would benefit from guidelines such as a benchmark for the reliability of data from different sources and indicators of progress towards rights.

• Conferences and workshops could be designed and organized in a more participatory manner, beginning with an idea or questionnaire and developing through email communication or web discussions into a firm design for a conference.  They can be held by different organizations and attended only by those interested and involved to increase the focus.

• More regional structures could be established, with country or regional representatives. 

… conceptual issues - the basis for collaboration and networking:  the network has already made some headway on methodologies, such as the work on transparency, but now more attention needs to be paid to establishing conceptual clarity in order to proceed as a network and with shared research.  Transparency is an issue which is being tackled by multilaterals, what sets us apart?  How can we ensure that the conceptual issues are addressed sufficiently, without differences and arguments paralyzing us and hampering research?  We need to think about learning pipelines without affecting the core of the work.  The need was also expressed to challenge paradigms, such as social expenditure.

… limits and scope of the network:  the group discussed what the network has the capacity to do and how we should focus our energies to add most value to the work of individual groups. 

• We need to build a strong group by focusing on priorities for research.  It was suggested that the main value of the network is to conduct budget analysis and highlight strategic areas for advocacy.

• We should map existing networks and movements and tap into those, adding perspective and technical capacity.

• How will the network engage with international institutions?  There was a suggestion that the network is well placed to work on fostering accountability of international institutions, and that capacity building should be directed at those in IFIs, who make so many important budgetary decisions, as well as civil society and government. 

• We have different legal frameworks for our budgets and we have to respond and act accordingly, we should work to map the different legal frameworks, as the framework developed by the IDB for Latin America. 

• It is important to plan for follow-up to research, the evolution of the work and what this means for the network. 

… themes for research:  there are some themes which can only be addressed at international level, where the IBP can add most value, such as the relationship between rights and budgets.  The list of themes for crosscutting research generated in the short discussion was:

• Costing rights

• Gender budgets

• Transparency

• Decentralization 

• Debt

• Public sector reform

• Participatory budgeting

… suggested work plan:  the discussions were summarized in the following work plan:

1. Prioritize common areas for research and interest.

2. Map existing areas of information and research and evaluate.

3. Identify gaps and augment with analysis and stories.

4. Place broader themes into the public debate.

5. Look for international and regional fora to put the research on the table.

Information exchange and communication:  
How can the International Budget Project facilitate improved communication and exchange between groups?   Suggestions and recommendations generated through discussion include:

• Create regional/ themed list serves: Interest was expressed in the promotion of regional or thematic networks.  Participants suggested an India Budget Network and a Gender Budget Network that could be initially promoted through focused sub-list serves.
• Translation of documents: For many it is very important to have access to documents in local languages, particularly Portuguese and Spanish for Latin America.  It was suggested that groups send rough translations of their papers or translated abstracts to the IBP for editing and dissemination.
• Limitation of Internet/email access: for some groups access to Internet access is slow or inconsistent, or only available to senior staff.  It is therefore essential that the IBP back up web-based communication and information with other formats, including hard copies of the newsletter, a digest of list-serve comments, etc.
• Update on activities:  In order for groups to keep up to date with what each other are doing it was suggested that the IBP conduct a regular email survey, with questions regarding current research, publications and events. The responses could be featured on the website or serve as the basis of editorials.
• International analysis: The research findings derived from the budget work that the different groups are doing could make a bigger impact if they shared and compared.  Data could be compared in order to pull out international trends on budget expenditure and allocation of resources.

Education, Training and Capacity Building: 
a discussion of  the role of the network and priorities of the groups for education and training.  The overarching theme was the development of modules for training on data tools, terms and analytic procedures to be adapted to different contexts, as a way to deepen knowledge of the budget and expand the network.  More specifically the groups looked at ways to facilitate:

… learning from others in the network:  should take several forms, from formal training to informal exchanges, technical training on specific skills to site visits to IBP or to other organizations with case studies of budget analysis.  

To make information most relevant to all groups regional models for budget work should be developed, and information exchange and training should be made available locally.  This could be through the development of a training curriculum, perhaps a manual that can be used by other NGOs, with training materials using video, audio and CD-ROM.  

… thematic training networks: develop training capacity, including materials, to provide training on particular themes, including: 

• Budget analysis:  from basic techniques, data analysis, terms and concepts, data sources, budget systems and tools for gender or issue specific budget analysis.
• Communications: including dissemination and presentation techniques, skills for writing for different audiences and in the most engaging way, using ‘balanced’ language. 
• Inter-governmental relations.
• Advocacy.
• Organizational development: including staff capacity for research and dissemination and marketing.  A major area for capacity building among groups is administrative systems and information technology, including systems and tools for data analysis.
• Tax issues: how to analyze tax policy at different levels, basic tax accounting procedures, how to collect local tax data, help on state/local municipal comparison analyses, specific tax advocacy strategies and how to introduce the topic to wider audiences.

The training should be designed to reach more staff, and different groups including practitioners, trainers and activists. It should be based squarely in a common analytic perspective, as this cannot be neutral.

Education: the group discussed the potential for bringing the results of research of the groups and key issues such as transparency and accountability into the public domain, perhaps through schools.   

Participating groups
and individuals