Learning, Paper

How Transparent are Governments When it Comes to Their Budget’s Impact on Poverty and Inequality?

Feb 21, 2019

February 2019 | By Paolo de Renzio, International Budget Partnership

Improving budget transparency practices is particularly important to enable the adequate monitoring and assessment of governments’ efforts to tackle poverty and inequality, and to understand the impact that budgets have on different groups of people.

This paper, part of our work related to how budgets can promote equity and justice, looks at the information governments provide on the impact of their budget policies on poor and disadvantaged groups – and on poverty and inequality more generally. The analysis is based on the results of three questions from the Open Budget Survey 2017 meant to hone in on these issues. Findings demonstrate that, on average, governments publish very little information on these topics, thereby limiting the ability of civil society to monitor these efforts and hold their governments accountable.

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How Transparent are Governments When it Comes to Their Budget’s Impact on Poverty and Inequality? (2019)

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government transparency of budgets impact on poverty inequality ibp 2019.pdf

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Authors

Paolo de Renzio

Senior Research Fellow, International Budget Partnership

Paolo de Renzio joined the International Budget Partnership in October 2010 as Senior Research Fellow and is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His research agenda covers a broad range of topics, including budget transparency and accountability, equity and justice in budgeting, taxation and tax expenditures, among others. He also supports the team producing the Open Budget Survey. Prior to joining the IBP, Paolo worked as a Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute; as an economist and policy advisor in Papua New Guinea’s Ministry of Finance; and as a UNDP public sector specialist, lecturer, and independent consultant in Mozambique. He has been a consultant for the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Commission, and for a number of bilateral donor agencies and international NGOs. Paolo holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Oxford, where his research focused on the impact of donor policies on budget reforms in developing countries. He also holds an MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from ‘Bocconi’ in Milan, Italy.

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