About this webinar

Among budget documents, a Citizens Budget stands out as the only document developed by the government exclusively for the public. Using non-technical language, it enables citizens to understand how the government is raising and spending money. This is important precondition for public participation in budget processes.  

Despite the potential benefits of the Citizens Budgets, they need to be developed carefully, as they do not represent budget presentation, but a document that responds to citizens needs in terms of presentation of budget priorities and other important public finance information in non-technical and accessible manner.  

This initiative aimed to help finance officials who have been involved or are about to be involved in preparation of Citizens Budgets to understand specifics of these type of budget documents. The webinar also provided tips for conceptualizing, preparing, and disseminating the Citizens Budgets, and a demonstration of the example prepared by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Slovenia.

What was it about

After the latest crisis more governments are rethinking the way they communicate to the public and involvement of the public, Citizens Budgets are increasingly becoming a tool that can enable citizens better understand government budget priorities. To make the most of the Citizens Budgets, however, they need to be presented in non-technical language, produced timely, and incorporate information that is relevant for the general public. In addition, they need to be widely accessible, this is why governments need to disseminate it to reach a wide audience.

Moreover, after the latest crisis, various international governmental and nongovernmental organizations have been developing strengthened standards and diagnostic tools for measuring how transparently a country manages budgets and fiscal affairs, whereas Citizens Budget present a basis for citizens participation. Among nongovernmental organizations, the International Budget Partnership (IBP) has been leading discussions on more transparent budgets and has also been collecting and presenting guiding materials for governments on how to develop Citizens Budgets.

This webinar provided an opportunity to discuss approaches governments can take to realize the potential of Citizens Budgets. It included a presentation by the IBP on “how to make the most of Citizens Budgets”, particularly how to know what information citizens would like to receive and how to get their input about it, when Citizens Budgets should be published and how they should be disseminated, and what the minimum standards are for such documents to be awarded points in the Open Budget Survey.

Developing guidelines for countries to prepare Citizens Budgets, the PEMPAL Budget Community of Practice (BCoP) presented a knowledge product on Citizens budget.

This webinar also provided an insight into the Slovenian experience in developing the State budget of the Republic of Slovenia.

Webinar faculty

Elena Mondo, IBP (up to 20 min)

Anna Belenchuk, Ministry of Finance, Russian Federation (up to 15 min)

Irena Roštan, Ministry of Finance, Slovenia (up to 10 min)

Q&A session (up to 15 min)

Who was it for

This initiative aimed to bring together finance officials who had been or will be involved in the preparation of Citizens Budgets in their respective country.

Partners

This learning initiative was supported by: