BCOP delegation will participate and contribute to the meeting of OECD Senior Budget Officials regional network for Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern European Countries (CESEE SBO) taking place on December 5-6. Cooperation with OECD provides an important opportunity for PEMPAL BCOP countries to exchange experience and share progress in budgeting reforms with countries from another network. BCOP’s content contribution to this OECD meeting, inter alia, will include delivering a presentation of the work of its Program and Performance Budgeting Working Group on linking budget planning with strategic planning. Other meeting sessions will include independent fiscal institutions and sustainability of public finances, green budgeting, spending reviews, Croatian PFM reforms, and a round table on recent budget developments in all participating countries.
On December 7-8, BCOP will hold a workshop on budget openness, in partnership with the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT). BCOP members selected this topic of budget openness measures targeting different categories of the public (including citizen budget material, budget literacy measures, and public participation measures) as the current priority topic for the Budget Literacy and Transparency Working Group. After having mostly implemented general citizens’ budgets and other initial budget openness measures, PEMPAL member countries recognize the need to address diverse informational requirements and encourage active participation of various segments of the public/external stakeholders.
