Case Study, Paper

Connecting Budget Credibility to the Sustainable Development Goals

Chronic budget credibility challenges can undermine efforts to prioritize spending for development goals. Underspent budgets can leave sectors and programs starved of resources, overspent budgets can result in high deficits and debt crises. Shifts across sectors and ministries undermine the priorities set out by the legislature in the annual budget and can result in some sectors being deprioritized during budget implementation. Previous research from IBP has shown that government underspending on budgets tends to disproportionately impact social sectors. For example, research from the World Bank and WHO has shown that health budgets are regularly reduced and deprioritized during budget implementation. Many countries can ill afford to lose resources to support goals around poverty reduction, child welfare, and other issues. Gains made on goals such as SDG 1 on Poverty up until 2019 were reversed because of the COVID pandemic, which led to increases in extreme poverty rates, reductions in gender equity, and a reversal of progress toward quality education, among other setbacks. Rising inflation and disruptions in global supply chains for food, fertilizer, and fuel, will also disproportionately impact vulnerable groups. Achieving the SDGs will require governments to mobilize additional financing and prioritize budget allocations toward the SDGs, while also ensuring that the funding committed to these sectors is spent to achieve these goals. In addition, governments and development partners may also need to analyze and assess the extent of budget credibility challenges and their impact on efforts to achieve the SDGs.

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Connecting Budget Credibility and SDG Results from 13 Country Investigations

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Case Study, Paper

Mongolia: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

This brief provides an overview of the status of Mongolia’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) implementation, by examining budget credibility trends for government expenditures in general as well as in seven sectors connected to key SDG targets.
Case Study, Paper

Côte d’Ivoire: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

This analysis aims to show how Côte d’Ivoire’s current performance on budget credibility can potentially impact wider efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and provides recommendations for how the government, Court of Auditors, parliament, civil society and the media can expand awareness and action about budget credibility and development goal discussions.
Case Study, Paper

Senegal: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

This brief reviews Senegal’s central government budget allocations and expenditure in six sectors that relate to the Sustainable Development Goals and examines budget credibility trends in each sector.
Case Study, Paper

Nepal: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

This brief presents analysis of Nepal’s Federal Government spending in six key sectors that relate to nine Sustainable Development Goals, examining budget credibility trends in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Case Study, Paper

South Africa: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

This brief explores challenges and improvements in South Africa’s budget allocation, implementation, and overall credibility and shows how these measures impact service delivery, poverty reduction, and progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.
Case Study, Paper

Zambia: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

This analysis aims to demonstrate how Zambia’s current performance on budget credibility can potentially impact wider efforts to achieve SDGs. We conclude with some recommendations for improving budget credibility for SDGs and overall development goals.
Case Study, Paper

Argentina: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

This report examines budget credibility trends in seven sectors related to ten SDGs, analyzing the differences between Argentina’s approved and executed budgets in 2018, 2019, and 2020. It also compares these spending patterns with the country’s progress in achieving the SDGs, as shown by Argentina’s results in the 2021 Sustainable Development Report.
Case Study, Paper

The Gambia: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

Focused on building strong democratic institutions and promoting socioeconomic growth, the National Development Plan (NDP) has eight strategic priorities aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Achieving these goals will require sufficient budget allocations and the discipline to adhere to them. Both are prerequisites to improving public service delivery and social welfare while deterring macroeconomic backlash—a looming risk for small economies like that of The Gambia.
Case Study, Paper

Romania: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

As Romania seeks accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), centering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can ground its budget in a clear, mission-driven, and performance-based vision. To actually achieve the global goals, however, the government will need to direct spending effectively toward critical development priorities—all while ensuring that funding is reaching the intended programs and beneficiaries.
Case Study, Paper

Nigeria: Budget Credibility and the Sustainable Development Goals

Since signing on to the 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, Nigeria has mainstreamed efforts to incorporate the 17 SDGs into its National Development Plan (NDP). Given that the majority of financing for achieving the SDGs comes from government sources, effective government implementation of the budget is a central component for achieving the NDP and, through it, the SDGs.
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