Fourth Conferenceof the International Budget Project

OSI Revenue Watch working dinner: The Open Society Institute is interested in exploring a Revenue Watch project to enable civil society in natural resource-rich countries to monitor their governments' management of resource-based revenues. This working dinner will assemble NGO's from countries that earn a substantial portion of their budget revenues from the export of natural resources. The discussion will focus on exploring interest, opportunity, and risk for development of a Revenue Watch project in these countries, assess what is already being done, discuss opportunities for cross-country collaboration, and means of combining Revenue Watch activity with International Budget Project's budget work in these countries.

The drafting of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) has been completed in several African countries, while many others are nearing the completion of this process. Understandably, much attention has been given to issues relating to the process of drafting PRSPs. This is important, as some have expressed concerns that this process was not truly and optimally participative in a number of countries. At the same time, the practical value of these documents will be determined by the effective implementation of the commitments reflected in them.

Almost certainly the most crucial variable that will determine this effectiveness in implementation is the extent to which PRSP commitments filter into resource allocation decisions. Taking meaningful steps towards poverty reduction not only requires policy and rhetoric. It also is essential that scarce public resources be spent in accordance with this goal. In other words, a tight fit between the PRSP and the budget is necessary to effectively implement the strategy.

Recent research on monitoring PRSP implementation shows that much effort has thus far been invested in discussing how to assess the ultimate poverty impact of the strategies. Intermediate output and input monitoring in particular have received far less attention (Booth and Lucas 2002). This despite the fact that the ultimate impact of PRSPs will only be determinable in several years, whereas the more immediate challenge is to monitor that the required inputs are channeled in such a way that is congruent with PRSP commitments. In this context, budget input monitoring assumes a crucial role. Civil society organizations are called upon to hold governments to account for spending decisions in order to monitor progress in implementing policies aimed at reducing and ultimately eradication poverty. This raises several key questions that need to be answered, such as:

- What exactly does the PRSP say about the budget?
- How is this reflected in budgets that follow the finalization of the PRSP?
- Furthermore, what is required in order for civil society organizations to be able to effectively monitor the congruence between PRSPs and budgets?

The aim of the proposed research is to explore the utility of PRSPs as budget input monitoring tools for civil society organizations. Since in many countries in Africa the implementation of PRSPs is commencing at this time, this is a necessary and timely contribution to the overall debate over the PRSP approach, and the monitoring of its implementation, where different countries and organizations can benefit from the exchange of their respective experiences.

The study is a joint initiative between: the Africa Budget Project at IDASA, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Integrated Social Development Centre (Isodec) in Ghana, the Malawi Economic Justice Network in Malawi and Action Aid in Tanzania.