Partnership Initiative
The IBP’s Partnership Initiative (PI) – funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – seeks to enhance the impact of budget work in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The PI is focused on developing or strengthening the work of over 35 civil society organizations (CSOs) to analyze budgets, monitor government programs, and increase the positive outcomes of public budgets
on poor communities in their countries.
The PI’s objectives are to:
- build sustainable institutions with dedicated capacity to conduct evidence-based budget advocacy;
- increase public access to timely, reliable, and useful information;
- enhance the effective participation of civil society in policy and budget processes;
- improve and influence budget policies, institutions, allocations, and execution; and
- establish a foundation of good practice for public budgeting on which future generations can build.
These are the initiatives’ guiding principles:
- Institution building: Multi-year package of financial support, technical assistance, and peer networking
- Ownership: Partner organizations establish their own project priorities
- Horizontality: Peer interaction and learning as the most effective way to provide mentoring and technical assistance
- Diversity: Work with a wide range of civil society groups and, whenever possible, with multiple initiatives within a country
- Collaboration: Promote partnerships between civil society groups, legislatures, budgeting officials, and the media within each country
- Solidarity: Commitment to support one another in achieving our common goals
- Empowerment: Develop capacities for citizen action, particularly in marginalized communities
PI Background
The Partnership Initiative will in many ways further and deepen the work begun by the IBP and its donor and civil society partners through the Civil Society Budget Initiative, which ran from 2003 to 2009. The CSBI aimed to build capacity for budget analysis in civil society organizations in selected low-income countries, ultimately to improve budget transparency and governance and decrease poverty in the countries. More »
