The Open Budget Survey 2015: Findings and Implications
The latest round of the Open Budget Survey reveals critical gaps in the systems in place in many countries for governments to manage public finance accountably. IBP’s Delaine McCullough explores the findings of the survey and their implications for global policy. Read More >>
Open Budgets and the Sustainable Development Goals
The world is on the brink of agreeing to a new set of goals that will set the global development agenda for the next 15 years. Drawing on the latest results of the Open Budget Survey, IBP’s Claire Schouten argues that it is now critical to look beyond the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to how they will be measured and implemented. Read More >>
The Efficacy of Open Budgets
Transparency and participation are increasingly seen as essential to a well-functioning budget system. But where is the evidence? IBP’s Paolo de Renzio discusses a new paper detailing the positive impacts that open budgets can have on service delivery, development outcomes, and, ultimately, people’s lives. Read More >>
Making Afghanistan’s Budget Work for the Provinces
Over the last decade, there have been several attempts to reform Afghanistan’s budget to make it work better for the provinces. Kabul-based consultant Sayed Nasrat looks at why the latest efforts at budget decentralization may just do the trick. Read More >>
Publications
The Open Budget Survey 2015
The fifth installment of the Open Budget Survey was released on 9 September 2015. As the world’s only independent, comparable measure of budget transparency, participation, and oversight, the Survey is a crucial tool for assessing budget accountability systems and uncovering global trends. A range of materials related to the Survey, including those below, are available in a number of languages at www.openbudgetsurvey.org.
Global Report – What are the major findings of the Open Budget Survey 2015? The report presents the global state of budget transparency, participation, and oversight and explores what the findings mean for global and national policies. It also offers recommendations for countries at different stages of budget accountability to make progress and outlines what different stakeholder can do to encourage change.
Results by Country – Country summaries present a more comprehensive picture of the state of budget transparency, participation, and oversight in each of the 102 countries assessed in the 2015 Survey. Based on the findings, each includes country-specific recommendations on how governments can improve.
Explore the data – All the data gathered for the Open Budget Survey 2015 are available through the Open Budget Survey Data Explorer. The tool allows users to make broad comparisons across countries, regions, and time, as well as explore responses and comments on individual indicators for each of the 102 countries surveyed.
Budget Document Library – The Open Budget Survey’s assessment of budget transparency is largely based on the public availability and comprehensiveness of eight key budget documents. Our budget document library houses in one central location all of the budget documents for each of the 102 countries assessed that are available to the public.
OBS 2015 Infographic – This infographic (on the right) visualizes the key findings and recommendations from the Open Budget Survey 2015.
Jobs
Senior Program Officer, Capacity Building – The Senior Program Officer will contribute to the IBP Capacity Building Team’s expertise in strategic thinking on building CSO capacity to do analysis of and advocacy on public finance and fiscal justice issues. Candidates should offer strong capabilities in program conceptualization, design, and implementation, as well as extensive knowledge of and capabilities in applying adult learning approaches and methodologies.
Program Officer for Latin America, Open Budget Initiative – The Program Officer will coordinate and monitor the implementation of IBP’s biennial Open Budget Survey and conduct priority research on budget transparency for a subset of countries.
Program Officer for South Africa, Catalyst – The Program Officer will support the South Africa Country Coordinator and be jointly responsible for implementing IBP’s South Africa Strategy in the Cape Town office.