BCOP’s Budget Literacy and Transparency Working Group (BLTWG) focuses on studying international experiences in budget literacy, openness, and access to citizens, as well as public participation and engagement in the budget process, with the aim of advancing practices in PEMPAL countries. Most of BCOP members continuously reported that reforms in this area are among priority areas. The group’s membership includes 18 of 21 BCOP member countries. After the themes of budget transparency and access (including citizens’ budget) and budget literacy having been examined in the previous years, the BLTWG recently developed on a comprehensive knowledge product on Public Participation in Fiscal Policy and the Budget Process –Establishing and/or Strengthening Mechanisms in PEMPAL Countries. In FY21, the BLTWG knowledge products will be focused on more narrowly targeted subtopics.
This VC workshop took place to work on the BLTWG’s new knowledge product on Mechanisms for national Ministries of Finance to facilitate participatory budgeting at subnational level and to design participatory budgeting initiatives at the national level. While previous knowledge product provided a broad technical resource on public participation, BCOP members are now interested in takin a deeper dive approach on the participatory budgeting specifically from the perspective of the national Ministries of Finance. The purpose of this knowledge product is to provide PEMPAL countries a practical menu on mechanisms of facilitating participatory budgeting at subnational level and designing participatory budgeting initiatives at the national level. During this workshop, the first draft of the knowledge product was presented, followed by comments provided by the BLTWG members and the World Bank experts. Based on received comments, the knowledge product will be finalized after the workshop.
