What will public finance look like in the year 2040? This publication presents four stories that imagine the role of fiscal transparency and accountability two decades from now.
By Jun 10, 2019
Across Latin America, tax expenditures are reducing government revenues by between 10 and 20 percent, but adequate information on their objectives, beneficiaries, and ultimate impact is lacking.
By May 21, 2019
How can we build a moral case for equitable budgets and redistributive policies that will resonate with a broad cross-section of society? This reflective piece points to the need to collect more evidence on attitudes about fairness across countries and communities and to fashion messages that emphasize our common humanity, rather than our differences.
By Apr 04, 2019
This guide — part of a series of guides on how to read and understand different budget documents at the national and county level in Kenya — provides some structured questions that will help the public, civil society organizations, and other agencies read and understand Kenya county Audit Reports.
By Apr 01, 2019
As part of the International Budget Partnership’s Assessing Budget Credibility Project, 24 civil society partners in 23 countries identified a budget credibility challenge in their country and scrutinized a case where the government consistently failed to raise or spend funds as it said it would at the start of the fiscal year. Partners looked for explanations for deviations in published documents and then sought interviews with public officials to further understand the deviations. These budget credibility country snapshot reports summarize their research.
By Mar 21, 2019
Nigeria has long had severe budget credibility issues, and recent evidence suggests that the problem has not improved. This paper probes the various factors that that may be contributing to the low credibility of the budget in Nigeria and presents an analysis structured around an assessment of eight different hypotheses for what could be driving the problem.
By Mar 07, 2019
This report summarizes budget credibility research undertaken in partnership with 24 civil society organizations in 23 countries between October 2018 and January 2019. Each partner organization identified a budget credibility challenge in their country and scrutinized a case where the government consistently failed to raise or spend funds as it said it would at the start of the fiscal year.
By Feb 21, 2019
This paper looks at the information governments provide on the impact of their budget policies on poor and disadvantaged groups – and on poverty and inequality more generally. The analysis is based on the results of three questions from the Open Budget Survey 2017 meant to hone in on these issues. Findings demonstrate that, on average, governments publish very little information on these topics, thereby limiting the ability of civil society to monitor these efforts and hold their governments accountable.
By Feb 14, 2019
This paper outlines the elements of a proposal to reframe debates around public finance and government budgets, drawing on the inter-related concepts of justice, democracy, and human rights, and putting more emphasis on issues of equity, sustainability, effectiveness and inclusion. The authors address some of the shortcomings of current approaches and propose a more solid, normative foundation on which public finance decisions can be assessed and taken.
By Jan 16, 2019
Tax expenditures — provisions that reduce the amount of tax that is paid by providing special treatment to a particular class of individual, industry, or activity — have been on the rise in Latin America and represent a reduction of between 10 and 20 percent in total revenues collected by governments, with questionable impact. Because the available evidence shows tax expenditures tend to generate economic distortions and worsen inequality, civil society groups are increasingly becoming interested in engaging with tax expenditures to hold governments accountable for this important and opaque area of public finance. This paper examines tax policy and tax expenditures in Latin America and the role that civil society can play in related debates.
By Dec 10, 2018
This publication presents four stories that envision public finance in the year 2040 and illustrate the crucial role of public finance systems and policies in advancing — or undermining — economic equality, social justice, sustainable development, and human rights. Organizations working in the fiscal transparency and accountability field can draw on these scenarios to stimulate a dialogue about long-term strategies for advancing fiscal transparency and accountability in ways that will contribute to positive change in the lives of the poor and marginalized.