The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at a historic United Nations Summit. The 2030 Agenda, being led by the United Nations, defines the global development framework that succeeds the UN Millennium Development Goals that came to an end in 2015.
The SDGs aim to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities, and tackle climate change while ensuring that no one is left behind. IBP believes fiscal transparency, participation, and accountability should be central to the sustainable development framework and how efforts to achieve the SDGs are financed. This belief guided our advocacy prior to the adoption of the SDGs and our ongoing efforts to engage governments, civil society, the U.N. and other international institutions and organizations to ensure fiscal transparency and participation feature in SDG monitoring frameworks.
Prior to the adoption of the SDGs, IBP collaborated with our civil society partners around the world to campaign for transparency, accountability, and participation to be at the heart of the sustainable development agenda. Our 2014 Budget Brief, “From Numbers to Nurses: Why Budget Transparency, Expenditure Monitoring, and Accountability are Vital to the Post-2015 Framework” shows that budget transparency, expenditure monitoring and accountability can contribute to increases in spending towards, and better results related to, development goals.
Positive developments from IBP’s early advocacy included securing a place for budget transparency and participation in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development Financing for Development. The Financing for Development agenda is critically important for effective and accountable financing for sustainable development through the SDGs and beyond.
You can find out more about our recommendations to governments and the UN in our blog post, “Open Budgets for the Sustainable Development Goals.” You can also learn more about our recent activities and read publications, statements, and submissions at the links below.
For more information or to join us in our sustainable development advocacy efforts, please contact Claire Schouten at [email protected].
Publications, Statements, and Activities
- On 24 April 2018 in New York, IBP participated in the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration Seventeenth Session. During the discussion on building capacities and effectively mobilizing, allocating, and managing budgetary resources for implementation of the 2030 Agenda, IBP made remarks on budgeting for the SDGs. Read our remarks here, or watch them here.
- Findings from IBP’s Open Budget Survey 2017 were included in the 2018 report of the UN’s Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development. The report draws on the expertise, analysis and data from almost 60 agencies and international institutions that make up the Task Force, which is led by UN DESA and includes the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, as well as UN agencies such as UNCTAD and UNDP.
- On 26 May 2017 in New York, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), and the International Budget Partnership (IBP) convened representatives of ministries of finance, supreme audit institutions, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and bilateral development partners for a one-day workshop on “Budgeting for the SDGs: Progress in Budget Reforms, Monitoring and Accountability for the SDGs”. The workshop aimed to share good practices on budget reporting, monitoring, and accountability and to develop practical, collaborative actions to help governments fulfill their commitments to sustainable development. Read a summary note of the workshop here.
- Open the Books: Why We Need to Open Budgets and Doors to Budgetary Engagement to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals outlines practical things that can be done to ensure that public money is being raised and spent to deliver critical public services , implement development priorities, and hold governments to account. This blog post was written in support of the International Budget Partnership’s co-authored chapter “Open Budgeting and Monitoring for the Sustainable Development Goals: A Country-level Perspective” included in the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and United Nations MPTF Office report Financing the UN Development System: Pathways to Reposition for Agenda 2030 (September 2017)
- The Budget Brief “Tracking Spending on the Sustainable Development Goals: What Have We Learned from the Millennium Development Goals?” explores good practices and lessons learned from monitoring of government budgets and expenditure on the Millennium Development Goals, featuring summaries of case studies from eleven countries.
- Open Budgets for the Sustainable Development Goals blog post (September 2015)
- Letter to Representatives of Member States to the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (June 2015, English and Spanish)
- Open Budgets Blog on Monitoring Spending in Post-2015 World (May 2015)
- Joint CSO Response to FFD Zero Draft (April 2015)
- Open Budgets Blog on the Financing for Development Draft and SDG Indicators (April 2015)
- Zero Draft (March 2015)
- Statement to the Financing for Development Session on Domestic Public Finance (February 2015)
- Member States’ Elements Paper (January 2015)
- Joint CSO Response (January 2015)
- Statement to the Financing for Development Session on Enabling and Conducive Governance (December 2014, English and Spanish)
- Response to the Open Working Group Zero Draft (July 2014)
- Letter to the UN Secretary General (October 2014)
- DFI/Oxfam/IBP brief (October 2014)
- Response to the Bali Communique (April 2013)
- Updated Joint CSO Response (May 2015)