AC-Initiatives

Budgetary transparency: a citizen initiative for the democratization of the General National Budget 2009-2011

Budgetary transparency is an issue of world relevance in regards to the legitimacy of governments before their citizens because it provides a space for influencing government's decisions regarding targeting and allocation of expenditure so that budget reflects the needs of the population. Based on that affirmation, the right to access to public information is recognized as a fundamental right.

The publication of the Open Budget Index 2006, developed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in the Framework of the Budget International Project, indicates that 57% of Colombian index shows that the government provides “some” information on the budget and the activities of the central government. It is yet to make room for improvement.

Of the seven budgetary documents analyzed in the Open Budget Questionnaire for OBI, Colombia would only produce information for 4 of them: 64% of the information in the executive proposal; 44% in the reports produced that year; 37% in the yearly report; and 83% in the auditing report. It did not produce any information on the budgetary process in the preliminary documents, citizen budget and mid-year analysis.

The results gathered from the OBI 2008 showed an improvement of 3%. However, these results still reflect that in Colombia “the Government provides 'some' information”. This is due to that the information contained in the key documents presents shortcomings. In spite these results, in Colombia six of the seven budgetary documents evaluated are produced. In other words, the Government has increased the amount of information available in comparison with the 2006 results, though there is still room for improvement and increasing the publicly-available information.

In the proposal by the Executive only 66% of the information is provided. The preliminary document contains only 78% of the information required; the Budget of the Citizen provides 33%; the reports casted throughout the year include 46%; the end-year report and the auditing report provide 50% and 72%, respectively. The mid-year analysis is not produced.

Advancing in the transparency of the Colombian budgetary process as well as its democratization, requires institutional articulation at the governmental level and of the civil organizations in the adoption of concerted criteria for the production of understandable and useful budgetary information available to citizens, including citizen training on national budget and ways of impact, together with the strengthening of spaces for publication of information.

In this sense, AC-Colombia is leading the project “Budgetary Transparency: a citizen initiative for the democratization of the Budget in Colombia 2009-2011”. Its objective is to increase informed and qualified participation of citizens and civil organizations in the Colombian budgetary process through the design and launching of a model for the democratization of such process to contribute to the strengthening of intergovernmental relations and facilitate the availability of public information for the analysis, deliberation, citizen control and accountability regarding the national budget, as well as the promotion of and training on budgetary transparency.

This initiative centers its attention in the development of three strategies for the implementation: a) the strengthening of mechanisms for intergovernmental articulation for the publication of and access to budgetary information; b) the creation of civil organizations for budgetary issues; y, c) the publication using information systems.

It is expected that this initiative contributes to: 1) the increase of the current Budgetary Transparency Index; 2) the promotion of institutional articulation between the Department of National Planning, the Ministry of Finance, Congress, Comptroller General and National Accounting Office; regarding the production of protocols for the presentation of budgetary information to the citizens; 3) the construction and consolidation of a model for  citizen  participation and influence in the Colombian budgetary process, y; 4) the increase of easy-access public information available to the citizen regarding such process.

The Project is expected to generate a synergy to articulate organizations of civil society with governmental institutions for the democratization of the Colombian budgetary process. To achieve it, the Project aims at giving impetus to this initiative by publishing the document “More information, greater development. Comparative analysis of open budget index 2006 and 2008: Promoting incidence, monitoring and citizen control of the general national budget in Colombia ” in 2009.