14 - 16 March 2018

BCOP Plenary Meeting on Improving Effectiveness and Accountability of Public Expenditures

Vienna, Austria

BCOP held its 2018 annual plenary meeting in Vienna on March 14-16, at which all of BCOP 21 member countries were invited. Plenary meeting topic was IMPROVING EFFECTIVENESS AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURES: Trends in Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations, Performance Budgeting, and Budget Participation. The key objectives of the meeting were to:

  • provide the opportunity for BCOP member countries to review approaches and trends in intergovernmental fiscal relations, familiarize with developments in OECD countries and discuss possible approaches and options for PEMPAL countries
  •  provide the opportunity for broad BCOP membership to review practices and approaches on the issues of BCOP Working Groups focus in the past year - use of performance indicators in performance budgeting and public participation. Get feedback from BCOP members on the most recent work on knowledge products, prepared by the Working Groups;
  • update members on BCOP progress since the last plenary meeting and to report back on countries’ priorities gathered in the pre-meeting survey to inform the development of the BCOP Action Plan 2018-19.

Presentations from the World Bank, OECD, PEFA Secretariat, Austrian Ministry of Finance, GIFT, along with PEMPAL country case studies of Russia, Serbia, Georgia, and Croatia were presented, as well as presentations of work on knowledge products and other updates of the BCOP Working Groups – Budget Literacy and Transparency Working Group and Program and Performance Budgeting Working Group.