This paper examines civil society organizations’ (CSOs) experiences monitoring Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and Highly Indebted Poor Country expenditures in several countries, including Bangladesh, Cameroon, Ghana, Uganda, and Zambia. It provides detailed descriptions of CSOs monitoring structures and evaluates the ability of CSOs to monitor effectively. The study concludes that limited access to data, a lack of skilled human resources, and a lack of political will constitute major challenges to the deepening and expanding of CSOs monitoring activities. It also argues that CSOs monitoring is valuable for reasons beyond its effects on fund management, including its contributions to community empowerment and the decentralization of power.
September 2016 | by Brendan Halloran, IBP (adapted from a longer study by Padmaja Nair)
The state of Maharashta is one of India’s most powerful economic engines. Yet despite India’s commitment to the principle of universal access, the state government spends less than 4 percent of its budget on health. Many social groups in Maharashta still lack access to quality healthcare and poor individuals are often forced to seek expensive private options.
Support for Advocacy and Training to Health Initiatives (SATHI) has been working to improve healthcare in Maharashta for almost 20 years. SATHI has worked with the objective of making the public health delivery system accessible and equitable to all, especially poor and marginalized people. SATHI’s work takes place along three fronts: ensuring the accountability of the public health system, establishing social control over private health systems, and promoting universal access to quality health care.
This case study documents the strategies and achievements of SATHI and its coalition partners, the impacts of CSO interventions on public health delivery and accountability, and challenges that have emerged.
The Open Budget Index assigns countries covered by the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey a transparency score on a 100-point scale using 109 of the Survey’s 140 questions. These questions focus specifically on whether the government provides the public with timely access to comprehensive budget information based on the public availability and content of eight key budget documents that all governments should publish over the different stages of the budget cycle. A score of roughly 60 is considered to represent the level at which countries are publishing sufficient information to allow public discussions on the budget to occur.
This case study examines Uganda’s journey toward greater budget transparency, looking at its reform trajectory from 2006 to 2015 in order to identify factors that have contributed to improved budget transparency during this period.
The Open Budget Index assigns countries covered by the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey a transparency score on a 100-point scale using 109 of the Survey’s 140 questions. These questions focus specifically on whether the government provides the public with timely access to comprehensive budget information based on the public availability and content of eight key budget documents that all governments should publish over the different stages of the budget cycle. A score of roughly 60 is considered to represent the level at which countries are publishing sufficient information to allow public discussions on the budget to occur.
Ghana has been making some efforts toward improving budget transparency over the years by making some information and some budget documents available to the public. However, Ghana’s performance on the Open Budget Index has not shown much improvement. This case study examines Ghana’s efforts, with special emphasis on the period of 2008 to 2016. It also examines the issue of “volatility” (i.e., the inconsistent publication of government budget information from year to year) in Ghana’s performance.
The Open Budget Index assigns countries covered by the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey a transparency score on a 100-point scale using 109 of the Survey’s 140 questions. These questions focus specifically on whether the government provides the public with timely access to comprehensive budget information based on the public availability and content of eight key budget documents that all governments should publish over the different stages of the budget cycle. A score of roughly 60 is considered to represent the level at which countries are publishing sufficient information to allow public discussions on the budget to occur.
After languishing in the “limited” category on the Open Budget Index for nearly a decade, the Philippines managed to achieve a score of 64 in the 2015 round. Up from a score of 48 in 2012, the country ascended to the rank of 21st in the world, fourth in Asia, and first in Southeast Asia. On the surface, the Philippines improved its transparency rating simply by publishing all eight key budget documents. However, beneath that surface is a story of how key actors in the government bureaucracy took action to fulfill the promise made by the administration at that time to curb corruption and make the management of public funds more efficient, effective, and open to citizens. This case study examines the public finance management reforms and additional government actions that served to increase fiscal transparency in the Philippines.
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