Strengthening the voice of 
civil society in the budget

The decisions referred to above have an immense impact on the lives of all citizens in a country, and yet are usually made by a political elite behind closed doors with complex and insufficient accountability mechanisms or participation from those who will be affected. 

This workshop explored some of the initiatives to open budget systems to civil society participation, in planning, monitoring and implementation, and to encourage awareness and involvement at grassroots levels.  Betty Maina and Atiur Rahman spoke about the work of the Institute of Economic Affairs in Kenya and the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies respectively to bring popular voices the budget debate. 

Kenya   Bangladesh

Formulating civil society proposals for the budget process:  
The Institute of Economic Affairs has been working for the last seven years on public policy advocacy, including economic reform issues.  In the last two years the Institute has moved into public expenditure issues, in response to the lack of popular participation in the process of prioritization, planning and budgeting at national level.  Analysis of budget proposals is limited to technocrats, in particular accountants for tax issues, and as such has a professional rather than popular bias. 

By design the Kenyan budget is based on a five-year development planning exercise, but as this planning process has eroded more policy weight has been falling directly on the budget process, which is very opaque.  There is a lack of consistency between budgets from year to year, with little basis for the shifting priorities and questionable long-term vision. 

… gathering voices:  The Institute has been working with civil society organizations and private sector groups, organizing public hearings to introduce and debate policy and budget issues.  These public hearings last two days, with the first day for groups from private financial institutions and manufacturing, focusing mainly on taxation issues and working on formulation of alternative economic goals for the country.  On the second day the participation of civil society groups is invited to discuss anti-poverty issues, in particular expenditure plans and priorities. 

… making the voices heard:  In conclusion to the hearing the panel synthesizes the contributions and concerns.  This constitutes a proposal which is based on a shared ideal of growth, develops tax plans and agrees expenditure priorities, including an amount ring-fenced for anti-poverty programs.  Officials from the Ministry of Finance are invited to attend and present at the workshop and receive the conclusions, which they say inform the MTEF process.

The proposals are then presented to the Parliamentary Finance Committee to inform and prepare the legislature.  After the budget is presented it is analyzed thoroughly and a submission is made to parliament as well as through press releases and public meetings.

…lessons:

·        The public hearings are valuable, and are improving, but the groups which attend are not well enough prepared for this level of debate.  A new work program for the Institute will provide prior training and preparation to the groups to ensure sharper debate and better outcomes.  

·        The budget document itself is the product of other systems and agreements, particularly the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, which is out of the scope of discussion. The development component of the budget is tied to counterpart funding from donor grants and loans, which is difficult to influence and result from an opaque negotiation process.  Furthermore, only 6% of expenditure is discretionary, the rest tied up with debt service and recurrent expenditure.  These underlying issues need to be tackled, and debates and advocacy need to expand to deal with debt, tax and public service reform.

·        While a lot of the language of the Institute’s submissions are appropriated into the budget speech it is difficult to tell the extent to which this will be implemented, and there is a fear of co-option into the process.

·        The last 2 years experience of working with the legislature on budget issues has shown that they are not using the existing constitutional measures to influence the budget.  This provides civil society with an opportunity to ensure that they have the appropriate capacity and structures to influence the budget. 

Setting budget priorities through internal debate in Bangladesh:  
Five years ago a network of civil society organizations initiated a campaign to raise awareness of the budget, its role and implications, through organized discussions with urban and rural poor communities and presentations to a cross section of civil society groups. 

On the basis of this sensitization the following year an increased number of groups participated in a round of budget discussions with members of parliament.  They discussed priorities, the policy framework and implementation plans.  The MPs all confessed to knowing nothing of the budget process or their responsibilities, but the following year they knew enough to challenge the budget.

In the third year, groups in different regions discussed the budget at village level and representatives met and presented to a national forum, with participation of experts in education, law and planning, and the Minister of Planning.  The end result was an alternative budget, which was picked up by the national daily newspaper and run on 8 pages.  This now happens every year, with the newspaper part of the process, and has made the process something of a national institution. Another aspect of the work is the preparation of local government ‘moral budgets’; put forward to encourage debate and spotlight issues at local level.

Whose participation?  Clearly there already is participation in any budget process, but it is the nature and extent of that participation that we challenge.  In the worst cases it is a few men in suits behind closed doors.  How can we ensure that the participation we are encouraging through such programs and activities described above is representative of the broad community, and not still the powerful and articulate?  Are women and children participating in setting priorities, and different ethnic or class groups?

Betty answered that participation in the public hearings in Kenya is solicited through a database of organizations held by the Institute and advertising in the national press.  Trade unions were invited but were afraid to jeopardize their relationship with government through participation in such a forum.

Participation in the Bangladesh project is varied, including trade unions, groups of farmers, women, lawyers, environmental activists.  It is an experimental and organic project and the issue of participation deserves further investigation.