Open Budgets Blog | International Budget Partnership

Advancing Aid and Budget Transparency for Development: Five Things You Need to Know

by Elise Dufief, Research and Monitoring Manager, Publish What You Fund and Claire Schouten, Senior Program Officer, International Budget Partnership— Jul 17, 2018

In countries where a significant portion of the budget comes from external actors, such as major international donors, it is crucial that these actors and their finance flows are transparent to ensure that available resources are allocated and spent in a manner that responds to citizens’ needs. This post outlines five things you need to know about aid and budget transparency based on the Open Budget Survey 2017 and Publish What You Fund’s 2018 Aid Transparency Index.

Collaborating to Build More Equitable and Inclusive Societies: Civil Society Budget Work in Europe

Jean Ross, Consultant— Jun 27, 2018

How do European civil society organizations work to address fiscal accountability? In April 2018, the International Budget Partnership invited leaders, practitioners, and thinkers from two dozen European civil society organizations engaged in budget analysis and advocacy to convene in Amsterdam. The purpose of the meeting was to broaden our understanding of how these groups work and to explore opportunities for future collaboration.

Tax Expenditures and Inequality in Latin America: News from a Collaborative Civil Society Partnership

By Alexandre Ciconello and Paolo de Renzio, International Budget Partnership— Jun 11, 2018

Over the past few years, IBP has collaborated with a group of Latin American civil society organizations in a research, advocacy, and learning project around tax expenditures and their impact on inequality in the region. Facilitated and coordinated by IBP, the Latin America Tax Expenditure Research, Advocacy and Learning (LATERAL) project aims to support civil society work in increasing the transparency, equity, and accountability of tax expenditure policies at the country and regional level.

Do Multistakeholder Initiatives Deliver on Accountability?

by the International Budget Partnership— May 03, 2018

Multistakeholder initiatives such as the Open Government Partnership, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency work to encourage transparency and accountability reforms in a rapidly expanding number of countries around the world. But how deep do reforms really go? What tangible changes are multistakeholder initiatives driving at the country level? These are some of the questions that Dr. Brandon Brockmyer of the Accountability Research Center has been investigating. We recently spoke to Brandon about his research.

Opening Municipal Budgets in Serbia

By Predrag Mijalković, president of the management board, Center for Education and Transparency (CETRA)— Apr 24, 2018

How can civil society respond to a lack of transparency in local budgetary policies? In Serbia, the Center for Education and Transparency created a web platform to analyze and visualize open data related to the planned and executed budgets of a sample of Serbian cities. The group was motivated by a desire to raise the level of transparency of the budget process in Serbia, and to contribute to establishing an effective and efficient system of public accountability. Learn more.

Volatility and the Africa Budget Transparency Puzzle: Can Levels of Institutionalization Help Explain the Open Budget Survey 2017 Results?

By Paolo de Renzio, International Budget Partnership— Apr 17, 2018

The Open Budget Survey 2017 recorded a global decline in average budget transparency scores for the first time since the survey’s inception. Nowhere was this decline more pronounced than in sub-Saharan Africa, in which 15 countries saw their Open Budget Index scores drop by more than five points. Is a lack of institutionalization of budget transparency practices to blame? And is examining this issue at the country level sufficient enough to understand how budget transparency practices evolve over time?

How Governments Close Civic Space: Lessons from Hungary

By Rebecca Warner, International Budget Partnership— Apr 11, 2018

As the global trend toward closing civic spaces continues, many organizations are forced to reevaluate how they engage with government in order to retain their ability to defend the interests of the people. In November 2017, OpenGov Hub invited András Kádár, co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, to discuss how Hungarian civil society is dealing with the deteriorating political environment and offer broader lessons and warnings for civil society actors in other countries. Read more.

Making the Most of the Budget Cycle: The Budget Oversight Stage

By Rebecca Warner, International Budget Partnership— Apr 04, 2018

Budget oversight includes a number of activities that aim to measure whether public resources have been used appropriately, effectively, and efficiently. At the end of the fiscal year, the executive branch should report its financial activities to the legislature and the public, as well as to an independent and professional supreme audit institution. During this stage of the budget cycle, civil society organizations that are interested in assessing problems in budget implementation can use Audit Reports to assess whether the government is spending public funds appropriately and effectively.

Impact Images: Cartooning for Change

by David Allan, Spectrum— Mar 28, 2018

Effectively communicating different aspects of economic justice while also making public finance information more accessible have been key goals of Spectrum, a research, policy, and communications group working in Myanmar. One strategy the organization has piloted with great results is the use of cartooning to explain complex topics like responsible resource use and revenue transparency to the public.

Stalling Progress on Budget Transparency: What Does It Mean?

by Jason Lakin, Ph.D.,International Budget Partnership— Mar 15, 2018

The most significant finding of the Open Budget Survey 2017 is that after a decade of steady progress, global average government budget transparency has actually dropped. Stalling progress toward greater budget transparency—fueled by outright declines in some countries—is consistent with a broader set of indicators that in recent years point to democratic recession, declining civic space, and faltering commitment to the rule of law around the world. For this reason, the survey’s 2017 findings have faced widespread acceptance in our discussions globally. They are of a piece with the zeitgeist.