Blog
The Open Budgets Blog features the opinions of the International Budget Partnership’s staff and associates on government budgets, poverty reduction, budget transparency and citizen participation.
Budget Trailblazers: Rommel Rodríguez and Jaime López
Each month, we shine a spotlight on partners who are using budget advocacy to bring transformational change to their communities. This month, we talked with Rommel Rodríguez, Macroeconomics and Development Area Coordinator, and Jaime López, Transparency Researcher, both from the National Development Foundation (FUNDE) in El Salvador.
Taking Accountability Seriously in Times of Crisis
This pandemic is far from over, but in order to keep moving toward recovery and renewal, we need to assess how countries are faring with relief spending– are they being open and accountable to help ensure funds go where they are needed most? The International Budget...
COVID-19 & Accountability in The Gambia
After decades of dictatorship, The Gambia had its first transfer of power by popular election in December 2016. This election brought hope, but unravelling decades of dictatorial rule has proven difficult. Government funds earmarked for public projects often end up in the hands of individuals with connections to politicians or used to benefit special interests.
Budget Trailblazers: Elena Calistru
In this section, we shine a spotlight on partners who are using budget advocacy to bring transformational change to their communities. This month, we talk with Elena Calistru, chair and founder of Funky Citizens, a Romanian-based NGO that builds research-based, data-driven advocacy tools. Funky Citizens was one of our research partners on the COVID-19 assessment.
Managing Covid Funds: the accountability gap
When the Covid pandemic broke in early 2020, there was near unanimous consent that a crisis of this magnitude required governments to act boldly and swiftly to meet the needs of their people. By the end of 2020, governments mobilized a staggering $14 trillion in fiscal policy responses of different types.
Budget Trailblazers: Dr. Sandra Guzmán
In this section, we shine a spotlight on partners who are using budget advocacy to bring transformational change to their communities. This month, we talk with Dr. Sandra Guzmán, founder and global agenda coordinator at the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Budget Trailblazers: Rongai Leakwara
In this section, we shine a spotlight on partners who are using budget advocacy to bring transformational change to their communities. This month, we talked with Rongai Leakwara, a budget champion from one of the smallest and marginalized ethnic minority communities in Kenya, known as the Ilchamus community.
The need to “double mainstream” gender and climate in public finance
Like gender inequality, climate change poses extremely complex and intersecting challenges and addressing them requires significant government intervention and coordination. In addition to the cross-cutting nature of an effective response, efforts to address climate breakdown are often components of a larger program or project, raising huge definitional and operational challenges.
Budget Trailblazers: Ubagu Amuche
In this section, we shine a spotlight on partners who are spearheading budget advocacy on the ground to affect transformational change in their communities.
Budget Trailblazers: Vara Prasad
In this section, we talk with the individuals and partners who are doing budget advocacy on the ground to affect transformational change in their community.
IBP Welcomes Experienced Leaders in Global Development to its Board of Trustees
We are excited to welcome new members Faith Mwangi-Powell and David Nussbaum and announce that Rakesh Rajani will take over as chair of IBP’s board of trustees.
A statement on the US Capitol attack
As advocates for open societies globally, the International Budget Partnership condemns the acts of terror and desecration of democratic institutions that took place in the US Capitol this week.
In case you missed it: high-level panel on promoting equity and accountability in the COVID-19 response
On Dec. 16, 2020, the Finance Ministry of the Republic of Indonesia and IBP held a high-level, virtual panel, “Getting it Right: Promoting Equity and Accountability in the COVID-19 Response,” which focused on equity and accountability in emergency public spending and how we can strengthen the role of civil society in monitoring these expenditures.
Light Continent: How African courts are redefining the contours of democracy and accountability
In this blog, IBP’s Jason Lakin explores how an emerging body of law across Africa is reshaping the contours of what we mean by democratic, accountable government and demanding that public officials clear a higher bar in making decisions without public oversight.
Civil society organizations and taxation: Emerging trends and priorities
Co-authored with the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), this blog explores the results of a collaborative scan of civil society organizations working in the taxation space with a specific interest in domestic taxation.
IBP joins the Addis Tax Initiative to strengthen the role of civil society in promoting equitable taxation
In October 2020, IBP formally joined the Addis Tax Initiative – a multi-stakeholder partnership that aims to enhance domestic revenue mobilization in developing countries – as part of its efforts to strengthen the role of civil society in promoting more equitable taxation in developing countries.
Putting the “social” into “social contracts”
IBP’s Jason Lakin argues that advocates for fair and equitable taxation must construct a broader narrative around the social contract as a fair agreement among free and equal people that can be justified to all who pledge to uphold it, only then can we build effective coalitions for tax justice that explicitly endorse redistribution through the tax system.
Government budgets responding to crisis: what we can learn from the Ebola emergency
This blog reviews lessons from two of the most impacted countries by the 2014 and 2015 Ebola crisis to help understand how government budgets change in response to a crisis and how these changes can impact budget credibility, particularly in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Overcoming barriers that limit accountability of public spending
Countries around the world have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by expending trillions of dollars to support their economies and provide relief to their populations, but a key challenge is ensuring that funds contribute to recovery and reach intended beneficiaries. Collaborations between supreme audit institutions and civil society groups can monitor government spending and ensure effective and lawful use of funds, improvement in public service delivery and response to disasters.
Part Three: From challenge to advocacy: how Social Justice put children at the heart of the budget
This is the third and final post in a series on the budget analysis and advocacy learning journey of IBP’s civil society partner, Social Justice in Cote d’Ivoire. The first part focuses on the partnership between IBP and Social Justice and how they started their budget analysis journey.