To celebrate the
International Open Data Day,
Mexico’s Secretariat of the
Treasury and Public Credit
through its Fiscal
Transparency Portal,
alongside Social TIC, leader
non-for-profit organization
in digital empowerment and
open data topics, are
leading the 3rd edition of
the #DataOnTheStreets Rally.
For this edition of the
Rally, through the GIFT
network, other countries
were invited to join this
initiative that seeks to
enhance citizen engagement
with the data from their
fiscal transparency portals.
The main objective is that
citizens become social
supervisors of public works
and agents of change in the
use and promotion of fiscal
transparency geolocated
data.
We are very pleased to
announce that Chile and
Colombia joined this
initiative, through the
Observatory of Fiscal
Spending of Chile, and the
Ministry of Finance and
Public Credit of the
Government of Colombia
respectively.
The Rally starts with a
webinar about the use of the
platforms and ends with an
event on March 3rd, when
final results will be
announced, and prizes will
be given. All the
participants will receive
training/feedback from
government experts about the
Rally information and about
the use and promotion of
open data to social
purposes.
FOLLOW
THE RESULTS of
this innovative public
participation’ exercise on Twitter
and Facebook with
the #DatosEnLaCalle
hashtag (Data on the streets
in Spanish) on March
3rd!
IBP
Releases the 2017 Open
Budget Survey
On January 31 in DC,
the International Budget
Partnership launched the
2017 Open Budget Survey at
an event in the World
Bank, in Washington D.C.
An additional global
presentation took place in
London, on February 6th.
After 10 years of steady
progress by countries, the
2017 survey shows that the
progress has stalled in
average global budget
transparency scores, from
45 in 2015 to 43 in 2017
for the 102 countries that
were surveyed in both
rounds (scores are out of
a possible 100). This is
in stark contrast to the
average increase of
roughly two points
documented among
comparable countries in
each round of the survey
between 2008 and 2015.
Many governments around
the world are facing
challenges and making less
information available
about how they raise and
spend public money,
according to the results
of the Open Budget Survey
2017. But there are signs
of optimism too in this
round of the OBS. The
modest decline did not
wipe away the global
progress registered in
fiscal transparency from
2008 to 2017. In that
period, the average OBI
score increased by 6
points, for countries with
comparable results
(Consider that IBP’s
methodology for measuring
transparency was updated
in 2017. Reflecting
changes in technology and
practice, now budget
documents are only
considered to be publicly
available if they are
published on an official
government website in a
timely manner). Moreover,
there is a group of
countries that have
noticeably improved their
scores, and that have
presented significant
innovations in public
participation.
Launched in 2006, the Open
Budget Survey
(OBS) is the
world’s only
independent, comparative
assessment of the three
pillars of public budget
accountability:
transparency, oversight
and public
participation.
The sixth round of this
biennial assessment, the
2017 survey evaluated 115
countries across six
continents, adding 13 new
countries to the survey
since the last round in
2015.
The
GIFT Network is proud to
acknowledge the
outstanding results in
the OBI of many of its
Stewards:
South Africa
ranked second place, after
New Zealand,
with a score of 89. This
was an improvement from a
score of 86 in the 2015
OBI. Also, with a score of
79, Mexico
ranked 6th, and
Brazil 7th
with an unchanged score of
77. Mexico improved
significantly from a score
of 66 in 2015. Moreover,
many of GIFT’s Stewards
accomplished improvements
in 2017: the Philippines
increased its score to 67,
from 64 in 2015; re; Indonesia
to 64 from 59; and Croatia
to 57 from 53. The
greatest advances in score
came from the Dominican
Republic
–scoring 66– and Guatemala
–scoring 61–, both with a
15point increase from
2015.
New
Blogpost!
The latest round of the
Open Budget Survey (OBS
2017)
includes a new set of
measures of public
participation based on an
emerging international
consensus about what
participation in the budget
process should look like.
The participation questions
were fundamentally
redesigned based on the GIFT
Public Participation
Principles for
the 2017 survey, so it is
not possible to assess
changes since the 2015
survey. Hence, the 2017 OBS
offers a completely new
stocktaking of the state of
the art in public
participation in the budget
process in the world. Budget
participation scores are low
overall, with the global
average score being 12 (out
of 100). This average,
however, masks considerable
variation across countries
and across stages of the
budget cycle.
GIFT lead
technical adviser Murray
Petrie finds that while a
small number of countries
are engaging the public
across the whole budget
cycle and exhibit many good
practices, the Open Budget
Survey 2017 participation
results make it clear that
all countries included in
the survey need to enhance
the inclusiveness, openness,
and depth of existing public
engagement mechanisms and
implement similar mechanisms
in other stages of the
budget cycle. The survey
shows that public engagement
takes place more during the
budget preparation stage
than during budget
implementation; more when
the budget is approved by
the legislature than when
the legislature considers
the Audit Report; and in a
significant number of
countries the Supreme Audit
Institution engages publicly
on the setting of its audit
program.
Also, a small number of
countries are engaging the
public across the whole
budget cycle and exhibit
many good practices
(Australia, New Zealand, the
Philippines, and the United
Kingdom). A much more
diverse group of countries
achieved the top score for
public engagement by the
executive branch on at least
one of the ten questions in
the survey, including
Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada,
Democratic Republic of
Congo, Egypt, Fiji, Ghana,
Guatemala, India,
Kyrgyzstan, Kenya,
Madagascar, Malawi,
Malaysia, Mexico, Poland,
South Africa, and Ukraine.
More than 80% of the
countries surveyed (94 out
of 115) have some form of
participatory mechanism in
place.
GIFT at
the OECD International
Forum on Peer-To-Peer
Learning for Effective
Institutions Implementing
the Agenda 2030
On February 13-14, in
partnership with the
National School of
Government International
(NSGI), the Effective
Institutions Platform (EIP),
along with the OECD, a GIFT
Steward, and the UNDP,
organized this International
Forum which gathered
approximately 70 experts and
practitioners from
developing and developed
countries with an interest
and experience in peer
learning to address the
politics of reform. The
Agenda 2030 for Sustainable
Development, notably the
goal on ‘peaceful, inclusive
societies and effective
institutions’ demand that
all actors work together on
how to achieve ambitious
targets in innovative more
ways. There is a growing
recognition that development
approaches need to change as
the development landscape
evolves. One of the
indicative changes is that
new forms of support to
institutional reform are
emerging which break with
traditional models of
technical assistance or
donor-driven programs.
Instead, countries are
turning to peer partnerships
for expertise on reform. A
growing body of evidence and
learning on peer-to-peer
(P2P) partnerships points to
a need for approaches
focused supporting
development leadership and
institutions at the center
of government.
GIFT
Network director contributed
in the Enhancing
transparency,
accountability and open
government
session, which was designed
to consider the ways in
which peer learning is
advancing in the areas of
financial transparency and
budgeting by taking a deeper
dive into ongoing
experiences in a number of
countries. Participants
looked into experiences in
and ideas of peer to peer
learning and workings help
make governments more open,
accountable, and responsive
to citizens, including
within the Open Government
Partnership (OGP).
GIFT
at the OBS – 2017 Launch
and Budget Transparency in
the Middle East and North
Africa Workshop in Amman,
Jordan
On February 14-15, the
International Monetary Fund
and the International Budget
Partnership convened a
workshop that gathered
representatives of civil
society organizations and
from ministries of finance
of Afghanistan, Jordan,
Morocco and Egypt to review
the Open Budget Survey (OBS)
research process and
timeline and explore
in-depth country-specific
results of OBS 2017. Other
points that were addressed
included understanding how
civil society uses budget
information, engages in
budget process and supports
government in reform
efforts; as well as
identifying how civil
society can contribute to
government reforms. MoF
explored the opportunities
for making key budget
documents more comprehensive
and useful. Finally,
participants worked together
to define an action plan to
improve budget transparency
at the country level, and to
identify means to promote
collaboration and
peer-to-peer learning
between countries, as well
as the technical support
desired from other
stakeholders.
Towards
greater transparency,
participation, and
accountability in Africa
During two working days
(February 22-23), IBP,
CABRI, the Ministry of
Budget of the Republic of
Guinea and GIFT
gathered representatives
from MoF of Benin, Cote
d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia to
discuss progress on budget
transparency measured by the
Open Budget Index.
Participants reflected on
the roles of the various
actors in the accountability
ecosystem; and identified
opportunities for MoF to
allow more participation in
the budget process, to
improve accountability. The
goal was to establish the
links between transparency,
participation and
accountability based on
practical cases of
regional/international
experience and the benefits
of transparency and
participation for better
budget execution and better
results in the delivery of
public services.
COMMUNITY
WALL
First
Global Conference of the
Platform for Collaboration
on Tax – Taxation and the
Sustainable Development
Goals
Speakers and
participants included senior
country policymakers, tax
administrators, and
representatives from
academia, the private
sector, civil society, donor
organizations, and regional
tax organizations. Five
thematic areas were covered:
domestic resource
mobilization and the state;
the role of tax in
supporting sustainable
economic growth, investment
and trade; the social
dimensions of tax (poverty,
inequality, and human
development); tax capacity
development; and tax
cooperation.
The conference built on
the vibrant global dialogue
on taxation, and insights
and views from the
conference will help inform
and shape the future work of
the PCT and its members. The
conference aimed to provide
guidance to individual
countries and other
stakeholders on how to
better target tax efforts to
achieve the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).
New
blog: World Bank’s Jim
Brumby writes about
“Game-changers and
whistle-blowers: taxing
wealth”
How tax systems can assist
in addressing excessive
increases in wealth
inequality was discussed at
the regular IMF-World Bank
session on taxation last
October. Taxation and
inequality was also
considered at the first conference
organized by the
Platform for the
Collaboration on Tax, held
at the United Nations in New
York earlier this month. In
this blogpost, Jim
Brumby explores six areas
where progress can be made.
The
community driven open data
platform, Open
Budgets India (OBI), on
government budgets in India
led by the Centre
for Budget and
Governance
Accountability
addressed limited
availability of relevant and
accessible information on
budgets in India at
different levels has been a
hindrance in this regard
with creating the Union
Budget dashboard
titled the Budget Explorer.
OBI’s aim is to facilitate
ways in which Union Budget
can be made more open and
easy to comprehend for both
the budget educated and
budget curious audience. Check it out!
NEW
RESOURCES
Insights
at GIFT Next
steps and lessons learned
from GIFT’s workshops (Peer
Learning)
Ministry of Finance – Republic
of Croatia
