On June 22-23, 2017 the Budget Literacy and Transparency Working Group, representing a group of up to 15 countries in the Europe and Central Asia region, held discussions in Moscow, Russia on budget literacy, transparency and public participation. The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and the World Bank hosted a conference on the results of the Russia Budget Literacy project, implemented in collaboration with the World Bank. As well as participating in this conference, the Working Group also met to discuss preliminary results from the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey on the availability of budget documentation, and the group’s future plans to review international approaches in public participation in the budget process, to build on their recent work on Citizens Budgets. The Group also rviewed the new Budget Transparency Toolkit, which is a self-assessment tool for countries, that has been prepared by OECD on a collaborative basis with other international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency and the International Budget Partnership.
On June 22, 2017 members of PEMPAL Working Group on Budget Transparency attended conference Enhancing Budget Literacy, which will took place in Moscow, Russia.
In December 2014, the World Bank in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation had initiated the joint project to enhance budget literacy in Russia. The development objective of the project was to develop a budget literacy training course for senior secondary school students and test it in three pilot regions.
This Conference provided an opportunity to present the Budget Literacy Project outcomes and deliverables including the curriculum and teaching and learning materials that had been developed. Participants of the Conference had a chance to talk to the experts who developed the course and those who were involved with the pilot testing in the regions, including teachers and government officials from Perm Krai, the Republic of Bashkortostan, Altai Krai and Moscow. In addition, the participants familiarized with international trends in budget literacy development and discussed the way ahead for enhancing budget literacy in the Russian Federation.
The Conference was organized by the World Bank, Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization 'Institute for the Development of Financial Markets'. The speakers and participants included representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Open Government, finance and education government authorities from the regions of the Russian Federation and Ministries of Finance from European and Central Asian countries – members of the Budget Transparency and Literacy Working Group from PEMPAL Budget Community of Practice.
