Nepal drops down global budget transparency index, as government makes it harder for citizens to understand and influence budget decisions affecting their lives
Major independent global report details how Nepal’s budget transparency ranking has fallen and reveals overall lack of transparency and accountability around the world Kathmandu, Nepal, 24 January– Nepal has been revealed to be amongst the countries with the biggest drops in transparency and accountability around their national budget, a major biennial report released on Wednesday has revealed. The International Budget Partnership released the Open Budget Survey 2012 (www.internationalbudget.org), the only independent, comparative, regular measure of budget transparency and accountability around the world.
Produced every two years by independent experts not beholden to national governments, the report found that Nepal has dropped in terms of its ranking on the Open Budget Index, which uses internationally recognized criteria to give each country a transparency score on a 100-point scale. What this means is that the government has made it more difficult for citizens to get information about what is being done with public money and to hold the government to account.
The Open Budget Survey 2012 found that 77 of the 100 countries assessed – these 77 countries are home to half the world’s population – fail to meet basic standards of transparency. This matters because budgets are the main tool governments use to set policies for raising and spending public funds, which promote development and meet the needs of the country’s people.
“It is unfortunate that Nepal drops in ranking with the score 44 out of 100, which is only marginally higher than the average score of 43 for all the 100 countries surveyed but is well below the scores of its neighbours in South Asia. The score in 2010 was 45,” said Taranath Dahal, Chairperson of Freedom Forum, which conducted the research for its country. “Nepal should produce and publish a Pre-Budget Statement and a Citizens Budget to improve the score which has remained largely constant since the OBI 2008′.
Higher scorers for the 2012 edition include New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Sweden, India, France and Norway, while the worst performers include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Fiji, China, among others. The impact of open and accountable public finance on development within countries is particularly important as the international community begins to think about the next set of Millennium Development Goals.
“Budget decisions and processes are critical to addressing many of the world’s most pressing problems,” commented Warren Krafchik, Director of the International Budget Partnership. “The success of efforts like those to reduce maternal mortality, eliminate persistent poverty, provide all children with access to high-quality education, and address the impact of climate change, amongst others, hinges on whether countries make the right budget choices and whether those decisions are implemented effectively. This is more than an abstract governance issue; it’s about the quality of life for millions of people around the world.”
The average Open Budget Index (OBI) scores for the 40 countries that have comparable data for all four rounds of the Survey has gone from 47 in 2006 to 57 in 2012, with nearly all regions of the world showing improvements. This increase in the average includes substantial improvement in a number of individual countries. For instance, Honduras (whose OBI score rose from 11 in 2010 to 53 in 2012), Afghanistan (whose score jumped from 8 in 2008 to 59 in 2012) and the countries of Francophone West Africa (whose scores doubled from 2010) show that significant progress is possible. These examples show how the commitment of governments – accompanied by other favorable factors such as donor interventions, international standards and civil society pressures – can yield significant and rapid improvements in budget transparency. They also show that it is possible for Nepal to return to a higher level of transparency quickly.