Open Budget Survey Update
In September 2016 the International Budget Partnership (IBP) will begin the Open Budget Survey 2017 — the world’s only independent, comparable measure of budget transparency, participation, and oversight. There are three things you should know about this sixth and latest round of the IBP’s biennial survey.
1.) What is the timeline for the Open Budget Survey 2017?
Researchers will begin collecting data in September 2016 and assess events, activities, and developments that occur before 31 December 2016.
2.) What is different about the Open Budget Survey 2017?
- To reflect evolving methods for disseminating budget information, we will now only consider documents that are published on an official government website as being “publicly available.”
- We have strengthened the indicators on public participation and oversight to underscore the importance of all three pillars of a well-functioning accountability ecosystem: budget transparency, public participation, and the effectiveness of oversight institutions.
- We have extended the coverage of the Open Budget Survey from 102 countries to 115 countries.
3.) What steps can countries take to improve performance on the 2017 Survey?
Recommendations for improving budget transparency, participation and oversight are included in each of the Open Budget Survey 2015 country summaries. In addition, we collaborated with our research partners to conduct an interim update on the public availability of the eight key budget documents to help inform budget transparency reforms.


