newsletter-3-mar-2016

GIFT just got bigger! 10 New Members Join the Network

Five government institutions and five civil society organizations from seven different countries have officially become GIFT stewards. These partners have been working strongly with the action network for quite some time and are part of GIFT’s active agenda for 2016.
As GIFT stewards, these partners commit to intensifying efforts to enhance fiscal transparency, participation and accountability in fiscal policies. They also express their willingness to promote discussions on participatory and accountable management of fiscal policies and promote cooperation and information sharing.
The new stewards are:
– The Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales ICEFI (Guatemala and working in Central America)
– The Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency – Seknas Fitra (Indonesia)
– Fundación Nacional para el Desarollo, FUNDE (El Salvador)
– The Emerging Markets Investors Alliance (USA)
– Global Integrity (USA)
– The Technical Secretariat of Planning & Economic & Social Development, Paraguay
– The Ministry of Finance, The Dominican Republic
– The Ministry of Finance, Tunisia
– The Ministry of Finance, Indonesia
– The Ministry of Finance, El Salvador
“The integration of these additional strong members to the action network brings GIFT’s membership to an all time high, a 50% increase from 2014, and confirms the credibility and usefulness of our activities and tools. These additions set the stage for a continuous and solid expansion in the near future,” Juan Pablo Guerrero, Network Director, said.
According to GIFT’s operating procedures, the members of the multi-stakeholder action network are called the stewards. Participation in GIFT is inclusive and open to any agency, institution, organization, or body willing to advance fiscal openness and to contribute to, or benefit from, the network’s streams of work. More information available here.

Check our New Section: Public Participation in 8 Visualizations

Documenting and sharing good practices is one of GIFT’s main work streams. In 2015, we published a series of case studies documenting mechanisms of public participation in fiscal transparency in eight countries. Now, they are also available as a collection of colorful visualizations.
You can check them out and share them with others in www.fiscaltransparency.net/mechanisms.
In total, the eight infographics show about 50 mechanisms used by the executive and legislative branches of government, as well as supreme audit institutions in Philippines, South Africa, Mexico, South Korea, Benya, Brazil, Croatia and Canada.
These mechanisms tell many stories, from how communities in the municipal level in the Philippines identify and help decide which projects should be included in the budget to how an innovative mechanism in Mexico allows school management stakeholders (parents, teachers, and directors) to decide how to invest federal funds.
More visualizations will be added to this section soon.

Keeping Up with GIFT: 2016 Workshops Are Here

Peer learning is key to GIFT’s strategy to advance global norms and fiscal transparency. In 2016, we have an ambitious agenda that covers all corners of the world with multiple opportunities to share experiences and learn from what others are doing.
In most cases, these activities will bring governments, civil society and private sector together to set the stage for collaboration and dialogue, as a key ingredient to finding innovative solutions.

March 14, Guatemala City: Conference in Guatemala hosted by ICEFI, the World Bank, the Fiscal Openness Working Group (GIFT), in a dialogue with the Ministry of Finance, other relevant local stakeholders and the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Support Unit, to address issues around the new Guatemalan Government OGP National Action Plan on fiscal transparency commitments.
April 4-6, Mexico City: Fiscal Openness Working Group workshop, hosted by the Ministry of Finance, with more than 10 countries’ MoF and CSO representatives attending to learn about and discuss fiscal transparency portals and disclosure of budget information using open data formats.
April 11, Washington DC: public discussion of new normative instruments for fiscal transparency and public finance management, including the IMF Resource Revenue Management pillar, the new PEFA Program Framework, and the GIFT public participation principles, in the framework of the IMF-World Bank Spring meetings.
April-May, Washington DC (date to be determined): donor discussion on improving donor efforts to promote budget transparency and accountability, as a follow up to the IBP September meeting about sharing experiences and lessons learned in the donor approaches to the promotion of these issues, organized by IBP and GIFT.
May 4-5-6, Cape Town, South Africa: Africa Regional OGP meeting, including a Fiscal Openness Working Group workshop on National Actions Plans, technology information tools and public participation.
October, Montevideo (date to be determined): FOWG session and workshop at the OGP America regional meeting in Uruguay.
June 28-29, Ljubljana, Slovenia: OECD Senior Budget Officials meeting in collaboration with PEMPAL (World Bank), the Fiscal Openness Working Group, IBP and the Institute for Public Finance (Croatia), focusing on Europe and Central Asia.
June/July, Jakarta (date to be determined): a Fiscal Openness Working Group regional workshop, in collaboration with GIFT partners Seknas/Fitra, the Indonesian Ministry of Finance, and the Ford Foundation.
June 7-8, Washington DC: the GIFT General Stewards Meeting.
September 20, Washington D.C.: GIFT Lead stewards meeting on strategic planning of the network.
October 3-5, Washington D.C: high-level presentation of the Guide on Principles and Practices in Public Participation in Fiscal Policies; fall meetings of the IMF-World Bank (October 7-9).
October 4-5, Washington DC: the GIFT General Stewards Meeting.
December (date to be determined): OGP Global Summit in Paris, with FOWG sessions and workshop.

New GIFT Video!
Impacts and incentives for fiscal openness: a Review of the Evidence
By Paolo de Renzio, Senior Research Fellow from International Budget Partnership – IBP

New #BlogPost
From fighting corruption to co-producing control in Brazilian municipalities
by Paula Chies Schommer and Florencia Guerzovich.

Photo: seir+seir

New Website Section
New Section in GIFT Website
You can now visit the new “Documents” section by clicking on About and then on Accountability, to find an archive of key documents.