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Our Money, Our Responsibility
A Citizens’ Guide to Monitoring Government Expenditures
Guide to Budget Work, October 2001 - Part 1, International Budget Project Part VI. Next Steps
15. Conclusion, and Suggestions for Getting Started
This guide has presented case studies of work undertaken by 17 organizations in 12 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These organizations range from research institutes to grassroots social movements. Some focus on national budgets, others on provincial and state budgets, and still others on local budgets. Some focus on budget advocacy; others use budget advocacy to strengthen their advocacy initiatives on other issues. Some work closely with government in monitoring the budget; others deliberately work independently of government.
In presenting such a wide variety of work, this Guide has aimed to underscore three points:
- Very different types of organizations around the world are conducting budget work effectively.
- Civil society organizations have considerable opportunities to monitor budget implementation – from creating new monitoring methodologies to collaborating with the legislative branch and others on oversight.
- All of the groups profiled here have had some impact on budget execution in their countries, and their successes can inspire other groups to do the same.
The potential for monitoring government budget implementation is large. Moreover, there are many other methods besides the ones presented here that organizations can employ, based on the specific political contexts in which they work. The key is for organizations to develop their own approaches based on the opportunities available to them. As new ways emerge to hold governments accountable for budget execution, they will be covered in subsequent editions of this Guide.
Some Ideas for Getting Started
As with many kinds of advocacy, sometimes the most difficult step is the first one – getting started. As the saying goes, if you have an hour to chop a stack of wood, sometimes the best thing to do is spend the first half hour sharpening your axe. In that same vein, organizations that want to start monitoring budget expenditures should take time up front to think about what approaches and projects represent the best use of their resources.
Below are some starting ideas that have worked well for groups:
1. Develop a Strategic Objective
As a first step, an organization might want to define its strategic objective for its budget advocacy work. The objective should have value (for both society and the group), should build on the group’s existing knowledge and experience, and should further the group’s advocacy efforts. One process that can help a group through this planning is the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) framework discussed in Chapter 9.
2. Develop a Solid Understanding of the Budget Process
Before beginning any type of budget work, an organization must take the time to build a solid understanding of the government’s budget process, including the execution process. One way to do this is to interview key actors, such as: budget officials, key legislators, journalists who cover government budgets, representatives from donor organizations (if the donors have a major role in the country’s budget process), and local civil society organizations that are familiar with the details of government budgets.
The group can also review literature on the government’s budget process published by the government itself and/or by multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF (which frequently issues assessments of a country’s budget process). Finally, the group could review the laws that govern the budget process.
3. Produce a Guide on the Budget Process
As a step toward helping educate citizens about the budget process, some budget advocacy groups have produced guides to the budget process. Developing such a guide can also deepen the organization’s own expertise on the budget process.
The production of such a guide is an obvious complement to the step listed above, wherein the organization develops its own expertise on this topic.
While such a guide might focus on the government’s budget execution process and the subsequent auditing and oversight processes, it need not be restricted to those phases of the budget cycle. To be complete, a guide should also explain the budget formulation and adoption phases.
4. Acquire Budget Monitoring Skills
Organizations like the International Budget Project provide budget training courses and technical assistance to groups that want to participate in budget issues in an effective way. These courses are an enormous help in enabling groups to secure technical and strategic skills.
Groups interested in budget issues can also learn by visiting other groups that have undertaken the type of budget monitoring activity in which they are interested. Finally, an organization beginning a budget advocacy project could seek a mentor, such as a former government official or other public finance specialist, to provide technical assistance during the initial stages of its work.
5. Access Budget Information
Officials in many developing countries thrive on maintaining secrecy regarding agency functions. Civil society’s demand for budget information strikes at the very heart of this system, which over the years may have fostered the development of a cozy nexus among corrupt officials.
The IBP Open Budget Index – a survey conducted in 2006 to measure budget transparency in 59 countries – reported that in many countries, public access to budget information is even more limited during the execution phase of the budget process than during the formulation and enactment phases (Gomez 2006). Not surprisingly, many civil society groups undertaking budget work find that their first project is to campaign for increased transparency in the budget process at the local, regional, and/or national level (depending on the group’s strategic focus).
In addition to advocating for greater budget transparency, an organization can also utilize a range of strategies that other organizations have used to obtain budget information. Among these are:
a. Identify sympathetic officials: No government is a monolith: while some public officials are hostile to civil society’s requests for information and assistance, others are extremely forthcoming. The latter can be critical allies in an effort to obtain information on public programs. To win over officials who are less forthcoming but not completely opposed, groups can try to persuade them of the need for transparency or appeal to their egos by offering them an opportunity to showcase their work. The only way to obtain information from hostile officials is to pressure them, such as by going over their heads, i.e., appealing to their bosses.
b. Use “right to information” laws: Roughly 70 countries around the world have laws that guarantee citizens the right to information (Banisar, 2006). An access to information law can be central to an organization’s strategy for conducting a social audit. Even if their country has such a law, however, groups will not always be able to obtain needed information. Information requests can run into a variety of obstacles, including claims that files are missing or that their disclosure would harm national security. An excellent collection of studies on access to information laws, including implementation problems, is available at www.freedominfo.org.
c. Use individual agency disclosure policies, courts, and civil petitions: In countries where there is no law guaranteeing access to information, individual agencies may sometimes have disclosure policies or charters on citizen rights that can provide for such access. In other countries, the national constitution may protect individual liberties that include the right to information. Citizens have successfully used constitutional provisions to file petitions in national courts to obtain information, though this is obviously a complicated process that can take years to complete.
d. Collaborate with auditors, legislators, and donors: Public audit institutions can be an excellent source of information. Legislators too often have much more information on public projects than ordinary citizens do, and civil society groups may be able to obtain extensive information through a sympathetic legislator. Similarly, in countries that are highly donor-dependent, donor organizations may have access to information on public projects – especially the projects these donors fund. Donors may be very forthcoming to a social audit process given their interest in ensuring that the funds they have donated are spent properly.
e. Direct action and campaign: The pioneer of non-violent direct action, Mahatma Gandhi, encouraged the use of direct action campaigns to demand changes from the government. He described the government response to such a campaign as follows: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Organizations that are repeatedly denied information might choose a strategy that relies on direct non-violent confrontation with the government agency that denies them information. Such a strategy should be undertaken only after careful deliberation given its possible consequences, including violent retribution from the government.
6. Just Take the Plunge
While it is good to take time up front to think and plan strategically, ultimately budget groups need to act. Some groups have started budget work based on an initial strategy and preliminary information and then developed both of these elements more deeply as they proceeded. With every new step, groups gain experience, confidence, and strength in making public budgets more accountable.