• Accountability
• Government
• Private sector

Accountability

General Budget Support (GBS) has emerged as a 'progressive' mode of development country assistance. Such a process accentuates the importance of partnership and ownership – rather than proscriptive policy; facilitates institution building; and encourages donors to harmonise their assistance i.e. avoid a multitude of funders disparately assisting a plethora of projects. The  GBS mechanism is very much a product of the aid effectiveness agenda – which also commits proponents to mutual accountability; increased alignment with target country objectives and a focus on results-orientated processes.

However, GBS  has also come under fire. At the recent aid effectiveness forum in Accra, civil society organisations complained of a lack of recipient government accountability in the budget assistance process - there have been concerns that budget support assists/supports incumbent government to the detriment of the opposition. Whereas in respect of donors some commentators have questioned their commitment to the budget process, with donors concentrating more on risk aversion than on the longer-term development opportunities afforded by GBS.

This journal considers the issue of GBS. It presents a range of articles which detail many of the pressing concerns surrounding budget support whilst offering guidelines on how to make GBS a truly effective aid mechanism.

The articles consider:

• how budget support can contribute to openness and democracy
  
• Tanzania : how budget support is making a difference in fighting corruption
  
• has budget support become a new way of imposing donor conditionalities? A civil society critique of European budget support for Nicaragua
  
• the way forward for budget support: recommendations
  

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend