| We
welcome our
six New Members!
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July
8
At a meeting on July 8, the GIFT
Network’s Lead Stewards accepted
applications for stewardship
from six new members. We are
happy to welcome our new
stewards: |
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GIFT Lead Stewards (the
International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank, the International
Budget Partnership, the
International Federation of
Accountants, and National Budget
Authorities of Brazil, the
Philippines and Mexico)
expressed excitement and delight
to see the network getting
larger and stronger! |
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Strengthening
Accountability through
Fiscal Openness: A
Toolkit for
Parliamentarians in the
Americas and the
Caribbean
ParlAmericas
July 27 |
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This
publication provides
an overview of good
practices to promote
transparency,
accountability and
public participation
throughout the
financial cycle. It is
tailored to
parliamentarians,
parliamentary staff
and relevant
stakeholders in the
Americas and the
Caribbean. It covers
the parliamentary
financial cycle,
including the
budgetary process and
major fiscal policy or
spending bills, such
as infrastructure
projects or tax
reform, and long-term
planning. It concisely
summarizes and
synthesizes the most
recent international
standards and
resources on
parliamentary fiscal
scrutiny and can also
serve as inspiration
to develop Open
Parliament Action Plan
commitments. Along
with the Institute of
Fiscal Studies and
Democracy, GIFT was
happy to be part of
this effort led by
ParlAmericas.
The Toolkit is
available in English,
Spanish,
French and
Portuguese
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Costa
Rica publishes new
revenues, budget and
spending open data
Ministry
of Finance, Costa Rica
July 1
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Seeking
to provide citizens with more
effective access to central
government budget information,
the Ministry of Finance of
Costa Rica published this
month the national budgets
from 2017 to 2020 using the
Open Fiscal Data Package
specification. This
publication was made in
coordination with the
Collaborative Laboratory for
Public Innovation of the
University of Costa Rica
(Innovaap-UCR) and with the
support of GIFT. The open data
can already be consulted here.
More to be proud about these
two new stewards!
With this publication, Costa
Rica joins the group of GIFT
countries publishing
standardized spending open
data. Visit the section of the
Open Fiscal
Data Package to know
more about this.
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COVID-19,
Fiscal Transparency and
Public Participation
Juan
Pablo Guerrero
July 16 |
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Following
the lessons from the book of
de Renzio, Khagram and
Fung—The political economy of
fiscal transparency,
participation, and
accountability around the
world—the author argues that
after the emergency, the
incentives for governments to
enhance transparency are going
to be strong. He also sees
that post-crisis, countries
may have an opportunity to
realign their priorities
towards development
objectives. The writing has
been published in the IMF PFM
blog post here.
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Guide
for budgetary analysis of
policies against
gender-based violence in
Argentina
Asociación
Civil por la Igualdad y la
Justicia (ACIJ), Argentina
July 2 |
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ACIJ
recently presented a Guide for
budget analysis of policies
against gender-based
violence in Argentina.
Withing that context, the
organization also held
training sessions for
journalists, academia members,
civil society organizations,
and institutions of the
executive and judicial
branches, at national and
provincial levels. The
workshops share experiences
and strategies on advocacy for
the rights of women and
LGBTTIQ++ people. The related
training sessions are
available on video in their YouTube
channel.
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Mainstreaming
Participation in Public
Financial Management for
Better Results
World
Bank Governance Global
Practice
July 22
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| Public
financial management
(PFM) is fundamental for
effective resource
management and the
backbone for effective
and efficient public
service delivery.
Citizen engagement (CE)
in the PFM cycle
contributes to achieving
better development
outcomes by mobilizing
citizens in the PFM
process, supporting more
inclusive budget
processes, and
establishing pro-poor
fiscal policies. This
note is intended to
provide a menu of CE
entry points in the PFM
cycle. It indicates that
CE in PFM needs to move
beyond transparency to
achieve development
objectives; budget
literacy for inclusive
CE is critical for both
government and citizens;
and two polarized types
of engagement in PFM —
engagement with the
general public and
engagement with small,
selected, and
specialized groups for
in-depth feedback — are
complementary to each
other in achieving
effective budget
outcomes. GIFT was part
of a conversation
organized by the World
in the framework of the
launch of this note.
Read the report here.
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Book
Launch: Building
Effective, Accountable,
and Inclusive Institutions
in Europe and Central Asia
World
Bank
July 9 |
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Countries
around the world are facing
the need to build effective,
accountable, and inclusive
institutions. This book
explores how governance and
institutions play a key role
in building economies and
delivering quality public
services to the people across
all countries in Europe and
Central Asia. There has never
been a more important moment
to tackle this agenda, as
countries grapple with
increasing fragility and
migration flows, more complex
service delivery requirements,
and greater demands for
transparency and inclusion,
all in a more
resource-constrained
environment. The COVID-19
pandemic crisis has provided
new evidence of the need for
effective, accountable, and
inclusive government
responses.
The
book consists of six chapters,
each corresponding to one of the
governance areas around which
governments across the world
organize their institutional
functions. Download the book here.
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Budget
transparency in Croatian
counties, cities and
municipalities
Institute
of Public Finance, Croatia
July 1 |
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The
Institute of Public Finance
presented the results of the
sixth annual research cycle
of the budget transparency
of all 576 Croatian local
governments. The overall
average level of budget
transparency in Croatian
counties, cities and
municipalities – expressed
as the number of budget
documents published on their
respective official websites
– is improving year by year,
and in this cycle stands at
4.1 (out of a maximum of 5).
This is a significant
improvement from 2015, when
it averaged 1.8. Although
the publication of budget
documents does not in itself
guarantee absolute
transparency, it is
considered the first step
towards higher levels of
transparency necessary for
the citizens’ participation
in the budget process and
their control of the
collection and spending of
public funds.
In
order to make the obtained
results as accessible and
clear as possible, the
Institute has published an interactive
map showing the
results of all counties,
cities and municipalities.
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Promoting
Effective Use of
COVID-19 Finance in
Africa: An IMF
Discussion with African
CSOs
International
Monetary Fund/GIFT
July
14
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GIFT
participated in a
webinar held by the
IMF about the Need for
Verification and the
Role of CSOs for
COVID-19. This session
presented a series of
questions from local
CSOs aimed at
listening to CSOs’
suggestions of
safeguards that should
be attached to
Covid-19 funding in
key areas of
transparency and
accountability, while discussing
the IMF’s support to
help counters cope
with the
pandemic. GIFT
Director emphasized
that CSOs play an
important role in
complementing the
functions of
government
institutions, from
policy design, to
implementation and
monitoring. In such
areas, the
strengthening of their
capacities is always
needed and welcome.
This is an important
ongoing discussion
where more is to
happen…
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- The
Index of Public Integrity
for 117 countries is out!
How does your country
score in it and how can
you improve it? www.integrity-index.org
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