We Participated in Workshop on Digital Tools, Information Technology and Citizen Engagement
In light of the 14th Annual Meeting of the OECD, Senior Budget Officials (SBO) from Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) and the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) organized a workshop on "Digital Tools, Information Technology and Citizen Engagement." The event was co-facilitated by Tara Vasiljević, CEF Program Team member working on the Budget Preparation and Execution Learning Program.
The workshop explored efforts towards increasing fiscal transparency and participation with the use and optimization of IT while covering three modules: fiscal transparency portals, targeting the audience, and the use of social media.
The event gathered around 20 officials from CESEE countries involved in design, leadership and support of budget reforms in their countries. On this occasion practical experiences and challenges faced in establishing fiscal transparency portals were discussed. The officials from Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Mexico, Russia, Belarus and the Kyrgyz Republic extensively explained steps taken in their countries towards the enhanced disclosure of budget information to the citizens.
The objective of the workshop was to frame the importance of using information and communication technologies to improve fiscal transparency and promote citizen engagement, illustrating with examples and lessons learned of the benefits of of social media channels and disclosure of budget information in open data.
We are proud to say that the CEF has earlier this year become the GIFT Stewart, while being acknowledged for its “experience, prestige, capacity and authority in advancing fiscal transparency and effectiveness in supporting government agencies in CEF constituency countries to enhance fiscal transparency, participation and accountability.”
The useful workshop materials can be found in this online library.
Find out more about Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT).