Open Budgets Blog

Cape Town South Africa Informal Settlement

Fiscal Futures: Is There a Space for Better Fiscal Accountability in South Africa’s Metropolitan Municipalities?

By Adi Kumar and Ryan Fester, Development Action Group— Mar 27, 2019

In South Africa’s metropolitan municipalities, civil society has limited influence over local government decision making, and most tactics to hold local governments accountable are failing. Can the emergence of cross-class and cross-race coalitions frame new forms of citizen participation and improve fiscal accountability?

Civil Society Groups Across Latin America are Starting to Question Tax Expenditures

By Paolo de Renzio and Alexandre Ciconello, International Budget Partnership — Mar 21, 2019

The International Budget Partnership has been working with a group of nine Latin American civil society organizations to promote research, advocacy, and learning around tax expenditures in the Latin American region. Recently, each group conducted research to examine how governments were using tax expenditures in their countries and to assess the impact of tax expenditures on inequality. Read more about how these groups are using their research findings to promote advocacy campaigns.

Budget Credibility: Is the Government Doing What It’s Saying and Saying What It’s Doing?

Jason Lakin, International Budget Partnership— Mar 07, 2019

When the International Budget Partnership put out an open call for 25 civil society organizations to research budget credibility issues in their countries last year, we thought we would struggle to reach that number. But more than 70 groups applied, and their research was just one component of our larger Assessing Budget Credibility project, which looks at the degree to which governments raise and spend public money in accordance with approved budgets, and the causes and consequences of any deviations.

Fiscal Futures: Can We Turn Tax Competition into Tax Cooperation?

by Didier Jacobs, Senior Policy Advisor, Oxfam America— Mar 06, 2019

Governments are engaged in a race to the bottom on corporate taxation. Tax rates are falling and tax incentives are multiplying. This is bad news when it comes to financing development. Citizens must demand transparency and accountability regarding tax incentives, and regional and global cooperation to set a floor under corporate tax rates.

Fiscal Futures: Targets for Equity Enhancing Tax Advocacy

By Wilson Prichard— Feb 27, 2019

Despite evidence of high and frequently rising inequality across much of the developing world, strengthening the equity of tax systems has usually been low on the agenda. However, there is a persuasive argument that civil society actors should place a significant advocacy focus on improving the overall equity of tax systems for technical, political, and strategic reasons.

Putting the ‘Public’ Back Into Public Finance: How Better Budgets Can Save Democracy

by Paolo de Renzio, International Budget Partnership— Feb 06, 2019

Public finance and government budgets are things few people get excited about, but they affect every one of us much more than we think. What would public finance that puts the public good — human beings with their needs and aspirations — at the center of government policy-making look like? And could this re-framing of public finance be the key to democratic renewal?