19 - 20 May 2021

2021 Annual BCOP Plenary Meeting

Videoconference

The 2021 Annual Plenary meeting of the PEMPAL Budget Community of Practice (BCOP) took place via videoconference on March 19-20, 2021 with all of the BCOP 21 member countries being invited to participate.  

This 2021 plenary meeting thematically focused on spending reviews; public participation in budgeting; climate change budget tagging, and budgeting and public participation trends post Covid. Specific objectives of the meeting were to: 

  • to discuss two finalized BCOP FY21 knowledge products (KPs) – PPBWG KP on Conducting Rapid Spending Review to Identify Measures for Budget Balancing and BLTWG KP on Mechanisms for the National MoFs to Facilitate Participatory Budgeting at Subnational Level and Design Initiatives at the National Level,
  • to present new BCOP FY21 KPs and gather participants’ comments - BLTWG KP on Mechanisms for Engaging Youth in Participatory Budgeting and PPBWG KP on Trends in Spending Reviews in PEMPAL Countries Benchmarked to Trends in OECD Countries,
  • to examine COVID-19 crises’ impact on budgeting, and to learn about some new trends in PFM - this will specifically entail a session on budget transparency and public participation and a session on the fiscal policy response to COVID-19 crisis and on climate change budget tagging.  
  • to plan upcoming BCOP’s activities – including the update of members on overall BCOP progress in FY20 and FY21 and gathering members’ input to inform the development of the BCOP Action Plan for FY22.

In addition to presentations of the BCOP’s working groups’ knowledge products, presentations were delivered by the representatives from the World Bank, OECD, and International Budget Partnership, while a part of the agenda was devoted to interactive discussions.