Democratization in fiscal policy workshop 2015 - OpenBudget Survey 2015 by IBP
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OpenBudget Survey 2015 by IBP - Results, Methodology, Insights & Recommendations
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Democratization in fiscal policy workshop 2015 - OpenBudget Survey 2015 by IBP
- 1. Democratization of Fiscal Policy Workshop www.InternationalBudget.org 1 Claire Schouten December 1st , 2015
- 3. www.InternationalBudget.org 3 Transparency Participation Transparency Oversight • 16 indicators measuring opportunities for public participation • 109 indicators measuring transparency (the Open Budget Index) • 15 indicators measuring the strength of the legislature and auditors Methodology: the accountability ecosystem 18 month process
- 4. www.InternationalBudget.org 4 • Average global score is 45 out of 100. • 78 countries provide insufficient information (score 60 or less) • 17 countries provide scant or no information (score 20 or less) • 16 countries fail to publish an Executive’s Budget Proposal. • Even when budget documents are published they often lack important details critical for SDGs/Climate finance There are serious gaps in budget information
- 7. www.InternationalBudget.org 7 Despite progress, enthusiasm should be tempered • Improvements have come from a low base. • Some countries have regressed (e.g. Albania, BH, Macedonia) • In many countries, there is considerable volatility in disclosure practices.
- 11. Few countries perform adequately across three pillars of budget accountability 0 out of 4 1 out of 4 2 out of 4 3 out of 4 4 out of 4 Afghanistan Algeria Azerbaijan Benin Bolivia Burkina Faso Cambodia Cameroon China Dem. Republic of Congo Egypt Equatorial Guinea Fiji Iraq Jordan Lebanon Liberia Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Papua New Guinea Qatar Rwanda São Tomé e Príncipe Saudi Arabia Sudan Tanzania Tunisia Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Albania Argentina Bangladesh Bosnia and Herzegovina Chad Croatia Dominican Republic Ecuador Ghana Guatemala Honduras Hungary India Kazakhstan Kenya Kyrgyz Republic Macedonia Malaysia Mali Namibia Nepal Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Pakistan Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Slovakia Spain Sri Lanka Thailand Timor-Leste Turkey Venezuela Botswana Bulgaria Chile Colombia Costa Rica El Salvador Indonesia Malawi Mexico Mongolia Poland Romania Tajikistan Trinidad and Tobago Uganda Ukraine United Kingdom Vietnam Czech Republic France Georgia Germany Italy New Zealand Peru Philippines Portugal Russia Slovenia South Korea Sweden Brazil Norway South Africa United States 32 Countries 35 Countries 18 Countries 13 Countries 4 Countries
- 12. www.InternationalBudget.org 12 Recommendations to improve transparency, participation & oversight 1. Publish more comprehensive budget information 2. Institutionalize gains in transparency 3. Provide more opportunities for public participation in the budget process 4. Empower oversight institutions 5. Promote the development of integrated accountability budget ecosystems
- 13. Next steps www.InternationalBudget.org 13 • Working with partners and various actors to open budgets and strengthen the accountability ecosystem • Reviewing practices and measures of participation and oversight • Continuing to research incentives, trends and practices in budget accountability (e.g. volatility, reform efforts) • Continuing the learning and engagement with the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency and the Fiscal Openness Working Group
Editor's Notes
- We collaborate with civil society around the world to analyze and influence public budgets in order to reduce poverty and improve the quality of governance. In order to achieve its goals, the IBP works in five major areas: - Building budget analysis and advocacy skills through training and technical assistance - Measuring and advancing transparency, accountability, and public participation in the budget process - Contributing to strong and sustainable organizations by providing financial assistance for civil society budget work - Enhancing knowledge exchange among civil society budget groups and other public finance stakeholders by acting as a hub of information on civil society budget work Building vibrant international and regional budget networks Range of materials for learning and advocacy e.g. http://internationalbudget.org/opening-budgets/open-budget-initiative/open-budget-survey/advocacy/advocacy-tools/budget-transparency-guide/
- The Open Budget Survey is the world’s only independent comparable measure of budget transparency, participation, and oversight Independent Biennial Based on international standards (IMF, OECD, IBP) Assesses the three pillars of the budget accountability ecosystem: Budget Transparency, Participation, and Strength of Oversight Institutions Country summaries: http://internationalbudget.org/opening-budgets/open-budget-initiative/open-budget-survey/country-info/ Open Budget Survey Data Explorer: http://internationalbudget.org/opening-budgets/open-budget-initiative/open-budget-survey/open-budget-survey-data-explorer/
- The Open Budget Survey is the world’s only independent comparable measure of budget transparency, participation, and oversight. Other public finance assessments mostly rely on government self-reporting, but the Open Budget Survey is implemented by independent researchers based in each of the countries surveyed who conduct analysis to determine the answers to 140 actual questions, and the results are reviewed by an anonymous expert. Governments in all survey countries are also invited to review and comment on the results, and many do so. The bulk of the questions examine the amount of budget information that is made available to the public through eight key budget documents. Based on the answers to 109 questions, each country is given a score between 0 and 100 on the Open Budget Index (OBI) – a broad, comparable measure of budget transparency. Previous results have been widely used by individual country governments and civil society organizations, as well as by multistakeholder and sector-specific transparency and accountability initiatives, to improve the disclosure of budget information. The Survey also consists of 16 questions examining opportunities for public participation in budget processes, and 15 questions examining the strength of the two formal oversight institutions, the legislature and the supreme audit institution.
- The executive, led by the Ministry of Finance, should publish the Executive’s Budget Proposal, ideally three months before the start of the year. This report presents the government’s detailed plans, in terms of policy priorities and budgets for each ministry and agency, for the coming budget year. Missing information - Amount and composition of debt. Information on the maturity profile of debt, the interest rate on the debt, or whether debt is domestic or external is often either incomplete or missing from the Executive’s Budget Proposal. Disclosing such information provides the public with a sense of how much a country owes to its creditors and the degree of risk the country is exposed to. Macroeconomic assumptions that underlie the budget projections. This includes real GDP growth, the inflation rate, and interest rates. Nor do they typically provide an analysis showing how sensitive budget projections are to possible changes in macroeconomic assumptions, which may help to indicate the possible impact of evolving economic conditions on the budget. The dramatic drop in oil prices since mid-2014 is a reminder of the severe toll volatile oil prices can take on hydrocarbon revenue-dependent economies and ultimately their citizens. Without information on macroeconomic assumptions and a sensitivity analysis, civil society and other actors are kept in the dark as to how a decrease in the price of oil might impact revenues, and to what extent deviations between budget estimates and actual outcomes can be attributed to fluctuations in the price of oil. Use of extra-budgetary funds, engaging in quasi-fiscal activities, extending tax concessions, or incurring contingent liabilities. Yet few governments among limited performers provide detailed information on these activities, potentially hiding substantial proportions of current or future public spending. An absence of information on these activities can raise doubts about a country’s fiscal position and create opportunities for corruption or the mismanagement of public funds. Also, such information is of particular interest to investors, who consider it important for assessing the risk of investing in a country.14 How the government’s policy goals are guiding budget allocations, and whether government programs and activities are meeting stated goals, are critical to civil society’s ability to influence and monitor the impact of government spending. However, information linking a government’s policy goals with budgeted expenditures is often missing or lacking in important details. Similarly, limited performers typically fall short of reporting expenditure data for all government programs, as well as providing detailed nonfinancial data on the results and performance targets for all programs. Without this, civil society and others lack much of the information they will need to hold governments to account for commitments made under global agreements such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and those to address climate change, making it less likely that the ambitious goals set will be achieved.
- Europe – 22 countries – average OBI score – 61 > average global score of 45 http://survey.internationalbudget.org/#availability - All publish the Executive’s Budget Proposal and Enacted Budget, but 7 countries don’t publish Pre-Budget Statement on time 13 don’t publish Citizens Budget on time 9 don’t publish Mid-Year Review on time 1 doesn’t publish the Year-End Report on time (Albania) 1 doesn’t publish the Audit Report on time (Spain) Of the 147 docs published on time (should be 176), only 22% are published in machine-readable format
- OBSTracker – 4 European countries (Armenia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia) http://www.obstracker.org/ OBS Tracker - A tool that provides regular monthly updates on whether the central government of the countries publish each of the key budget documents on time as per international standards.
- Most countries provide weak opportunities for public participation Average public participation score is only 25 out of 100. 82 countries are weak in providing opportunities for the public to participate in the budget process. Only seven countries provide adequate opportunities for public participation. (Brazil, NZ, Norway, Phil, SA, S Korea, US) Pioneering public participation mechanisms in Brazil, India, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, UK, US (e.g. UK’s National Audit Office’s fraud hotline) innovative participation practices – e.g. Planning - Public Policy Management Councils (Brazil), Advisory Boards (South Korea), Participatory Budgeting (Philippines); Enactment – Testimony at public hearings on individual budgets of administrative units and macroeconomic policies (United States); Execution – Social Audits (India), Client Surveys (New Zealand); Oversight – Citizens Audit Request System (South Korea), Participatory Audits (Philippines), Hotlines (United States, United Kingdom) Europe – 22 countries – average participation score – 34 > global average of 25 http://survey.internationalbudget.org/#participation
- Formal oversight In more than half of the countries surveyed, legislatures lack access to independent research capacity. In one-third of countries, legislatures are not given enough time to review the budget proposal before it is passed. In the majority of countries, supreme audit institutions have weak or nonexistent quality assurance systems. Europe's average oversight score is 65 > global average of 53 Few countries perform well across all pillars of budget accountability Only countries that score well across all three pillars – Brazil, Norway, South Africa and the US – European countries could do far better
- Linking budget data with service delivery in India, Kenya, South Africa, with more to follow GIFT Open fiscal data pilots and fiscal data package work in Armenia and Moldova http://os-data.github.io/boost-armenia/viz/treemap/# Europe Fiscal Openness Working Group meeting in Europe in the spring 2016 Meeting with OECD on public participation principles / practices