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NEWSLETTER #14

Gift Award
We want to hear your story on public participation in fiscal policy!
GIFT is launching the Public Participation in Fiscal Policy and Budget Making GIFT Award, looking for experiences that can tell a compelling story of viable approaches of how governments around the world are integrating the voice of citizens in the way public resources are raised and spent.

Selected practices will be:
• Presented at the Fiscal Openness Working Group panel during the Open Government Partnership Regional Summit, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 21 & 22, 2017 (GIFT will cover expenses, including airfare, lodging, meals and local transportation,) for the person responsible for presenting the submission).
• Included as a mechanism of the Guide on Public Participation in Fiscal Policy Principles and Mechanisms (GIFT team will adjust or complete drafting to comply with the Guide’s format and standard).
• Documented, including video interview and communication materials, to be disseminated worldwide through the GIFT network and network alliances.
 
Information here.
Submit your story before August 25th!
Regional Conference on Public Participation in the Budget Process in Slovenia
     The Court of Audit of Slovenia hosted and organized together with GIFT the Regional Conference on Public Participation in Ljubljana that took place on May 9, at the National Council. The Conference was attended by more than seventy people from multiple sectors such as national and local government, legislative representatives, university experts, and civil society organizations. International experts and practitioners, as well as government practitioners from Slovenia and Croatia shared their knowledge and experience in promoting public participation in fiscal policy in their countries. Discussions centered around the different challenges they have faced in this endeavor, and the mechanisms that have been designed to incorporate citizen’s voices to their fiscal governance structures. Experiences were discussed in light of the GIFT Principles of Public Participation in Fiscal Policy.

     The Conference also set the basis for a promising and fruitful collaboration between the Court of Audit and the Ministry of Finance of Slovenia and GIFT in important areas such as transparency, with emphasis on the uses of international technologies and social media and other tools to enhance the spaces for public participation.

     See meeting materials here.
Paraguay discusses the challenges of transparency and open data
     Paraguay’s Technical Secretariat for Planning (STP in Spanish) –a GIFT Steward— and the Ministry of Finance, with the support of the World Bank and GIFT, organized a learning and exchange conference on transparency, access to information and open data, that took place in Asuncion on June 1 and 2. The first day was a working session in which government officials met with peers from Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay (the last two, GIFT Stewards) to discuss progress, challenges and opportunities in the implementation of transparency, access to information and open data policies. On the second day, some 280 local authorities from all around the country met with the international experts and civil society to discuss how to strengthen the transparency of national and local budgets and plans to guarantee access to information and promote public participation.

     The STP presented a newly established data system for publishing budget information, planning and performance indicators data, using the GIFT fiscal open data package that has been developed with Open Knowledge International, using the Open Spending platform.
 
     The Secretariat, along with the National Secretariat for ICT, launched, on June 2, the fourth edition of the 2017 #InnovandoPY Hackathon, to promote civic engagement in the development of high social value technological solutions. The Hackathon consists on a contest for programmers and specialists to develop apps based on open data to improve service for citizens. There are two categories for the contest: open source and public policies’ open data, for which the STP releases the open data of the Presidential Control Panel and of the Results Planning System.
 
See meeting materials here.
     GIFT would like to enthusiastically congratulate PhD Lea Raquel Gimenez Duarte, who was appointed on June 4 Minister of Finance of Paraguay. A good friend of the GIFT network, Minister Gimenez pushed strongly the agenda of fiscal transparency In Paraguay as vice Minister of Finance. Besides the good expectations for the transparency agenda, the appointment has a historical connotation: she is the first woman to be minister of finance in Paraguay. Congratulations Min. Lea Gimenez! @lea_g_d
WHAT’S NEW

     GIFT-IBP launch the “In Their Own Words: Reform Champions Speak About Incentives for Fiscal Openness” series, with six original interviews was conducted during the last two years, as part of a Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) and International Budget Partnership (IBP) research project.
¿Cuál es la importancia de la participación pública para IBP?

María José Eva.
Encargada de Programas para América Latina
IBP - International Budget Partnership
COMMUNITY WALL
     In Guatemala, the Red Ciudadana www.redciudadana.org (Civic Network), organization that is part of the Open Government civil society network, involved in the co-creation of the Third National Action Plan has been working along with the Ministry of Finance on fiscal transparency commitments: specifically, on the open data table and the Open Contracting commitment. Red Ciudadana has developed the following projects that promote budget transparency, awareness and participation: Open Budgets (http://presupuestoabierto.gt/) in partnership with government to provide feedback on the 2018-2011 budget; Draft your Budget (arma.adondevanmisimpuestos.gt), and Where do my Taxes Go? (www.adondevanmisimpuestos.gt)
     Meet the Chile Government Spending Observatory (http://observatoriofiscal.cl/)  that generates and disseminates knowledge about spending; analyzes spending data and generates reports, and collaborates with public agencies to improve their accountability.

     Check out Madagascar’s Ministry of Finance and Budget fiscal transparency portal! http://www.dgbudget.mg/transparencebudgetaire
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A multi-stakeholder action network to advance fiscal transparency, participation and accountability worldwide.

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