Fostering Budget Transparency and Enabling Citizen Participation

Connect with IMF Institute

Fostering Budget Transparency and Enabling Citizen Participation (FBTECP)

A number of Indian states have identified the need to make progress in the transparency of their budget documentation, and to strengthen citizen participation. For example, Odisha has made significant headway in the quality of its budget documentation, and Tamil Nadu recently produced its first citizens budget. However, the general quality of budget transparency requires significant improvement, as suggested by the 2021 Open Budget Survey covering the central government.

Modern public financial management practices stress the importance of transparency, accountability, and credibility in budgeting to promote development objectives. The budget is both a policy tool and a critical entryway for citizen engagement. This one-week workshop will provide officials with the core principles needed to strengthen budget transparency and citizen participation, combining theory and practice.

Target Audience

Mid- to senior-level officials from finance ministries/departments, planning bodies, and line ministries. The course will be most useful to officials with some decision-making authority and who are responsible for writing and/or overseeing sections of state budget documents and budget communications.

Qualifications

Priority will be given to officials currently engaged in macro fiscal planning and forecasting, expenditure and revenue policy, budget formulation, debt management, and fiscal risk reporting. Participants should possess good English language-writing skills.

Course Objectives

The course has two main objectives:

to provide participants with the tools to improve the transparency and quality of their states' budget documents;
and to identify opportunities for enhanced citizen engagement.

On completion of the course, participants should be able to:

Understand the principles of clear budget documentation
Link budget decisions and proposals to policy
Identify core policy elements and themes, and build these into a clear narrative.
Assess target audiences and draft documents with these audiences in mind.
Improve analysis of trends and developments, supported by clear graphs and tables.
Improve the clarity and reduce the density of budget documents.
Write more clearly, without jargon, and with adequate explanation of technical terminology for a non-specialist audience.
Identify ways to promote citizen engagement.

FACTSHEETS

RESOURCES

TOPICS

Flagship Publications

Other Publications

IMF reports and publications by country

Regional Offices

All News

See Also

For Journalists

Press Center

RESOURCES

FLAGSHIPS

KEY SERIES

IMF NOTES

Training Catalog Course Details