Budgets
Our money, our responsibility a citizens' guide to monitoring government expenditure
How can government spending be monitored?
Authors:
V. Ramkumar
Publisher:
International Budget Partnership, 2008
The third in a series of guides covering financial budgeting and accountability, this paper offers an overview of government budget implementation processes and provides practical, tested tools that can be used by civil society organisations interested in monitoring government expenditures. It provides a close-up look at four stages in which civil society groups can track and monitor expenditures: budget execution, procurement, measuring impact, and the audit and legislative oversight process. It particularly focuses on civil society efforts to monitor and influence the quality of government expenditures.
The potential for monitoring government budget implementation is large. The key is for organisations to develop their own approaches based on the opportunities available to them. As new ways emerge to hold governments accountable for budget execution, they will be covered in subsequent editions of this Guide. The document also looks at next steps and puts forward some key starting ideas that have worked well for groups. These include:
- develop a strategic objective- as a first step, an organisation might want to define its strategic objective for its budget advocacy work
- develop a solid understanding of the budget process-before beginning any type of budget work, an organisation must take the time to build a solid understanding of the government's budget process, including the execution process
- produce a guide on the budget process-as a step toward helping educate citizens about the budget process, some budget advocacy groups have produced guides to the budget process
- acquire budget monitoring skills- organisations like the International Budget Project provide budget training courses and technical assistance to groups that want to participate in budget issues in an effective way.
