Budget Monitoring

How Open Is Nigeria’s “Open Treasury”?

Samuel Atiku, Senior Project Officer, SPARK, Nigeria, Chloe Cho, Research Analyst, and Jason Lakin, Senior Research Fellow — Mar 12, 2020

In 2019, the Nigerian government took an important step toward greater fiscal transparency by launching the Open Treasury web portal, promising to create opportunities for greater scrutiny of low budget execution. However, IBP’s analysis shows that several improvements need to be made to make the portal a robust and user-friendly tool to analyze government budget information.

SDG Action Begins with Credible Budgets

Adrienne Carter and Guillermo Herrera — Oct 10, 2019

Public budgets are the most powerful tool governments have to direct their resources to meet the needs of their people, are critical to achieving the SDGs. Unfortunately, governments often fail to fully implement their budgets according to plan. IBP and UNICEF co-hosted two panel events in New York during the UN General Assembly to discuss the importance of budget credibility to achieving the SDGs.

Tax to finance the SDGs, but not to undermine them

By Wilson Prichard, ICTD; Nora Lustig, CEQ; Sanjeev Gupta, CGD; Warren Krafchik, IBP; Ian Gary, Oxfam; and Brahima Coulibaly, Brookings— Jul 01, 2019

Stakeholders are gathering this week in Berlin to chart the future of the Addis Tax Initiative, whose overarching goal is to increase tax revenues to help finance the Sustainable Development Goals. This blog written by experts from civil society highlights the need to focus on equity and outlines priority areas for reform so as not to undermine the SDGs.

Why Reasons are Fundamental in Government Budgets

Jason Lakin, Ph.D., International Budget Partnership— Nov 29, 2018

Modern government budgeting is increasingly expected to be an extended conversation between executives, legislatures, auditors, the public, and other independent institutions. In this conversation, governments cannot simply announce their plans. They have to explain the reasons for the choices they are making. So how can we judge the quality of reasons that governments provide? Our new paper, “Assessing the Quality of Reasons in Government Budget Documents,” proposes five criteria.

What does ‘going to scale’ mean in poor communities in South Africa?

by Albert van Zyl, International Budget Partnership South Africa— Aug 01, 2018

How can we scale up small pockets of development progress? The International Budget Partnership South Africa and its partners Planact and the Social Audit Network have seen their social audit work in informal settlements go to scale – sometimes by intent, but often by accident. Learn more about why both channels matter.

Making and Keeping Promises: Why Budget Credibility Matters

by Guillermo Herrera, International Budget Partnership— Jul 31, 2018

Budget credibility describes the ability of governments to accurately and consistently meet their expenditure and revenue targets. Two key issues pertaining to budget credibility warrant greater attention: the impact of budget deviations on citizens and services, and how governments justify budget deviations and are held accountable for them. The International Budget Partnership’s Assessing Budget Credibility project aims to investigate these issues further. In July 2018, IBP and the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico, in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, co-hosted a side-event during the 2018 United Nations High Level Political Forum to discuss budget credibility, and its relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Shedding Light on Spending Through the Tax Code: Previewing the Open Budget Survey 2017

Jean Ross, Independent Consultant— Jan 11, 2018

The need for timely, accessible information on tax expenditures is critical as countries around the world seek to strengthen domestic tax systems to meet the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals and the need for domestic resources. The Open Budget Survey 2017 will provide an important indication of how governments are responding to this challenge and whether budget experts within governments and civil society will have the information they need to be informed participants in critical policy debates.

The Rise of the Activist Auditor

Vivek Ramkumar, Senior Director of Policy, International Budget Partnership— Aug 01, 2017

Nearly every country in the world has a functional supreme audit institution that is mandated with checking whether public funds are being managed properly and in line with sound financial management practices. However, audit reports seldom receive the level of popular scrutiny that they deserve. Fortunately, supreme audit institutions are increasingly recognizing the need to engage with citizens, which has the potential to transform the way in which the public views their work.

Opening Budgets to Fight Climate Change

Delaine McCullough, Communications Manager, International Budget Partnership— Jun 13, 2017

Estimates of the funds that must be mobilized globally for an adequate response to climate change amount to hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Although funds will be coming from both international and domestic private and public sources, much of the climate change efforts will be managed by national and subnational governments through their domestic budgeting systems. To ensure that the scarce resources invested in climate-related activities are spent most effectively and reach the intended beneficiaries — the people and communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change — with minimum leakages, transparency and accountability will be essential.

Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) Damage and Rehabilitation in the Philippines

Overseeing Budget Sustainability: A New Tool for Watchdogs

by Daniel Baksa, David Mihalyi, and Balazs Romhanyi— Mar 28, 2017

When optimism fuels public spending and earnings fail to materialize, a country can quickly find itself in fiscal crisis. Civil society has a crucial role to play in ensuring government policies are sustainable, yet interrogating the assumptions underlying budget decisions can be dauntingly complex. For this reason the Natural Resource Government Institute and the Fiscal Responsibility Institute Budapest have developed a tool to help potential watchdogs grapple with these complexities.