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Budgets as Bridges Decisions about how public resources are raised and spent are at the heart of democratic practice and inclusive policymaking www.InternationalBudget.org 2 Open Budget Survey: Key Features • Assesses whether the basic conditions needed for representative democracy to function are being met in the budget sphere • Only independent, comparative measure of budget transparency and accountability in the world • Produced by independent budget experts • Questions based on international standards • Measures observable facts using 145 scored indicators • Sixth round of the OBS, with earlier assessments occurring in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2015 • Covers 115 countries, including 13 new countries 3 OBS Coverage of the ECA Region Countries Assessed in the OBS 2017 10 Countries 1. Albania 12. Moldova Not Assessed 2. Azerbaijan 13. Poland o Armenia 3. Bosnia-Herzegovina 14. Romania o Belarus 4. Bulgaria 15. Russia o Cyprus o 5. Croatia 16. Serbia Estonia o Kosovo 6. Czech Republic 17. Slovakia o Latvia 7. Georgia 18. Slovenia o Lithuania 8. Hungary 19. Tajikistan o Montenegro 9. Kazakhstan 20. Turkey o Turkmenistan o 10. Kyrgyz Republic 21. Ukraine Uzbekistan 11. Macedonia 4 What does the OBS Evaluate? • 109 indicators used to • 18 revised questions • 18 new questions construct the Open examine formal examine opportunities Budget Index assess oversight institutions for public participation whether governments in national budget publish online and in a decision-making and timely manner eight oversight key budget documents www.InternationalBudget.org 5 The OBS Research Process 6 OBS 2017: Finding 1 Governments fail to make sufficient information available to the public to understand, debate and participate in budget decisions www.InternationalBudget.org 7 The Open Budget Index (OBI) 2017 The average OBI score of the 115 countries surveyed in 2017 is 42 out of 100, suggesting that the global state of transparency is limited www.InternationalBudget.org 8 3 of every 4 countries fall short on OBI 89 of 115 countries surveyed fail to provide sufficient information to the public on their national budgets, according to Open Budget Index 2017 9 OBS 2017 Results for ECA Countries Of the 21 ECA countries covered in the OBS 2017, 71% fail to provide sufficient budget information www.InternationalBudget.org 10 On average, ECA countries provide limited budget information Average OBI Score by Region 100 On average, ECA countries score 55 out of 100 on the OBI Score > 60 68 is sufficient 55 o Higher than the 42 global average (42) o Lower than the 0 OECD average Global ECA OECD 115 countries 21 countries 22 countries (68) www.InternationalBudget.org 11 Global State of Budget Documents • The OBS is anchored on eight key internationally recognized budget documents necessary to inform the four stages of the budget cycle • These include planning documents, execution reports, and the audit findings • Publicly available documents = published online and in a timely manner (the acceptable timeframe varies for each document). • Cutoff date: for the OBS 2017, only documents that should have been published prior to 31 December 2016 have been assessed www.InternationalBudget.org 12 40% of Key Documents Not Published Of those documents that are not publicly available, more than half are already produced by governments www.InternationalBudget.org 13 Documents Published: ECA vs Global 43% Pre-Budget Statement 48% 77% Executive's Budget Proposal 100% 87% Enacted Budget 100% 50% Citizens Budget 62% 70% In-Year Reports 95% 29% Mid-Year Review 33% 66% Year-End Report 95% 67% Audit Report 95% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Global (115 countries) ECA (21 countries) www.InternationalBudget.org 14 Characteristics Associated with Different Levels of Transparency • On average, countries releasing sufficient budget information are: o more likely to be democratic, o have greater media freedom, o are less dependent on oil revenue, and o have lower perceived corruption • But, there is nothing regionally or culturally determined about budget transparency. • The 11 countries that publish all 8 key documents are spectacularly diverse, representing all major regions of the world: Brazil, Bulgaria, Georgia, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, and Sweden. www.InternationalBudget.org 15 OBS 2017: Finding 2 Progress toward greater transparency has stalled for the first time since IBP began measuring it over a decade ago www.InternationalBudget.org 16 Increases in Transparency Halted between 2015 and 2017 The average OBI score fell from 45 in 2015 to 43 in 2017 for the 102 countries surveyed in both rounds www.InternationalBudget.org 17 OBI Decline Reflects Large Drop in Sub-Saharan Africa Score between 2015 & 2017 Regional changes in OBI scores, 2015 - 2017 Regional Average OBI Region 2015 2017 Change* East Asia & Pacific 41 44 3 Eastern Europe & Central Asia 54 55 1 Latin America & Caribbean 50 50 1 Middle East & North Africa 21 20 -1 South Asia 42 46 5 Sub-Saharan Africa 39 29 -11 Western Europe & the United States 74 73 -1 All countries 45 43 -2 * Changes may not tally due to rounding www.InternationalBudget.org 18 ECA: Changes in OBI Scores 2015-2017 19 Taking a Longer View: 2008 - 2017 • The decline in budget transparency in 2017 did not erase all of the gains from previous rounds of the OBS → Between 2008 and 2017, the average OBI score rose by 6 points for comparable countries • Increase in comprehensiveness: available budget documents contain more information than they did in previous years • Individual country gains: substantial improvements in diverse countries like Georgia, Jordan, Mexico, and Senegal → any government can register impressive gains in transparency in a short period of time www.InternationalBudget.org 20 OBS 2017: Finding 3 Problems associated with lack of budget transparency are compounded by weak and ineffective oversight institutions and few opportunities for public participation in budgeting www.InternationalBudget.org 21 Oversight by Legislatures: Limited! • Legislatures exercise more oversight earlier in the budget process than during implementation, but…… Caveat: Could lead to spending not in line with the initial priorities agreed to in the original budget • Legislatures amend the budget in over half of the countries surveyed, but…… in the majority of countries, the executive can change the budget during implementation without legislative approval • In more than one-third of countries, legislatures do not examine any Audit Reports produced by Supreme Audit Institutions www.InternationalBudget.org 22 Legislative Oversight Scores Europe and Central Asia Ukraine Czech Republic Slovenia Poland Russia Kyrgyz Republic Kazakhstan Georgia Albania Tajikistan Romania Bulgaria Azerbaijan Serbia Hungary Bosnia and Herzegovina Turkey Slovakia Moldova Croatia Macedonia 0 20 40 60 80 100 23 Oversight by Supreme Audit Institutions • The basic conditions for Countries grouped by their 2017 supreme audit institutions to SAI oversight score carry out their oversight function exist in the majority of countries surveyed • The conditions tend to be less favorable in countries that have lower levels of budget transparency • For instance, where executive can remove auditor, average OBI score is 25; where executive cannot, score is 46 24 SAI Oversight Scores Europe and Central Asia Poland Hungary Bosnia and Herzegovina Georgia Croatia Czech Republic Slovenia Russia Azerbaijan Serbia Moldova Ukraine Kyrgyz Republic Turkey Macedonia Albania Romania Bulgaria Slovakia Tajikistan Kazakhstan 0 20 40 60 80 100 25 Global Scores on Public Participation are Low • Not a single country out of the 115 surveyed offers participation opportunities that are considered adequate (meaning a score of 61 or higher). • The average global score is just 12 out of 100. • Only four countries have scores that indicate limited opportunities for public participation: o Australia o New Zealand o the Philippines o the United Kingdom 26 ECA Public Participation Scores Kyrgyz Republic Ukraine Croatia Poland Bulgaria Georgia Kazakhstan Russia Azerbaijan Hungary Slovenia Bosnia and Herzegovina Slovakia Czech Republic Tajikistan Moldova Romania Serbia Albania Macedonia Turkey 0 20 40 60 80 100 Global Average: 12 27 Participation Mechanisms: Examples • Philippines Budget Partnership Agreements have strengthened the ability of individual agencies to negotiate their budget demands with the central budget agency through partnerships with citizens • South Korea Waste Reporting Center has saved the government an average of US$1 billion a year over the last 16 years • Canada For the fiscal year 2017 budget, pre-Budget Consultations resulted in more than a million interactions between citizens and their government 28 OBS 2017: Finding 4 No country has adequate practices in all three areas assessed -- transparency, participation, and oversight-- largely because governments lack formal spaces for citizens to have a voice in budget decision making www.InternationalBudget.org 29 OBS 2017: Countries Performance Across the Three Pillars of the Accountability System 30 Open Budget Survey 2017 31 31 IBP Pilot Engagements with SAIs • A series of case studies commissioned by IBP highlighted the importance of incentivizing governments to address audit report recommendations • IBP is beginning to pilot engagements with SAIs to promote: o Improved communication of audit recommendations, especially from performance audit reports o Enhanced engagement of oversight actors from within and outside government www.InternationalBudget.org 32 Contact Information 820 First Street, NE Suite 510 Washington, DC 20002 Phone: +1-202-408-1080 Fax: +1-202-408-8173 Email: [email protected] www.InternationalBudget.org 33.

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