TRACKING BUDGET INPUTS FOR THE SDGs: AN EARLY WARNING QUICK WIN FOR THE DATA REVOLUTION

Matthew Martin Development Finance International (in partnership with International Budget Partnership, Oxfam International, Publish What You Fund and 67 other civil society organisations) Cartagena Data Festival, 21 April 2015 1

HOW ARE WE RUNNING THIS SESSION ?

 First half – presentations and Q and A – much more in reports available at the door  But especially we want to hear from you on your experiences of trying to use budget data, tax data, aid data, and trying to hold governments and donors accountable, on what types of budget data would help you to do better, and on how you think we should compile and present them so you can be more effective in your work 2

WHY THIS INITIATIVE AND WHAT IS IT ?

    During the MDGs, astonishingly little data on how much governments have been spending to reach the goals, or on the tax revenue, aid and other finance which is reaching government budgets to support the MDGs Coalition of 70 CSOs from 50 countries formed to ensure countries and international agencies (as part of SDG MoI monitoring) track budget inputs in « near real time » and thereby increase spending/results Builds on many country-level initiatives (coming up) by IBP/Oxfam/others with local partners which dramatically raised transparency and accountability Aims to agree country-level compacts on spending, revenue and financing to raise quantity/quality/results of spending and transparency and accountability to citizens 3

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FOUR SETS OF LOW-COST QUICK WINS

Publishing budget-related documents and data governments already produce Publishing spending data to show governments are spending more on SDGs, track beneficiaries/results, and combat in-country inequality Publishing revenue data to show governments are fighting inequality via progressive taxes, eliminating exemptions and fighting tax evasion Publishing financing data (aid, debt, PPPs) and loan/contract documents to show funders are providing sufficient, sustainable finance 4

Why is budget information important?

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 Public management tool  Prioritization  Allocation of resources (scarce)  Results (quantity and quality)  Public participation  Independent oversight 6

Audit Report Pre budget Executive Budget Proposal Year end Report Budget Cycle Enacted Budget Mid review Report Citizen Budget In Year Report More transparency / more open data

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http://survey.internationalbudget.org/ 8

Why would citizens be interested in the public budget?

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 Participatory budget  Access to more information (Internet)  Increasing of expectation and demands  

People are not informed / interested on SDGs but they want changes in their living conditions and access to opportunities

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Budget information for Citizen Engagement: case of Peru

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51% MDG

Designed by National Executive Power Executed by National, Regional and Local Governments 

Regional and local governments are accountable to National Government but not to citizens that they serve

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Regional / Local level

 Who is in charge of main projects / programs  Education  Health  WASH  How can we ensure that budget projects will be implemented?

 Participate and Monitoring  Complain  Denounce 13

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SPENDING: GOVERNMENT SPENDING WATCH

In spite of efforts by many especially UN agencies, very little data on what governments are spending on MDGs What has been published is mostly 2-3 years out of date and omits many MDGs (eg no comprehensive data sets on hunger/nutrition, water/sanitation or social protection) Since 2008, various UN agencies, INGOs and officials from more than 60 countries have been supporting

Government Spending Watch (GSW)

, an initiative to publish MDG spending data more rapidly – 2015 report covers 2014, available here With only US$400,000, has helped improve MDG spend transparency of 67 countries from 45% to 60% in 3 years Globally, data have been used to advocate increases in spending and funding for education, health, WASH 14

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SPENDING: GOVERNMENT SPENDING WATCH

67 countries, 11 in Latin America, 15 more being finalised Data for 2008-14, preparing 2015 Seven MDG sectors: agriculture and food, education, environment, gender, health, social protection, water and sanitation Plus “less desirable spending – defence and debt service 15

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SHOW THAT DATA IMPROVES RESULTS

DFI/IBP/Oxfam analysis using IBP/GSW/CIVICUS data shows transparent budget data = higher spend = greater MDG results  Education spend grew 2% faster and health 1% faster a year in countries becoming more transparent  Primary enrolment rose 2% more and child mortality fell by 20/100 more per year in same countries  So spending data can be a key early warning system to predict progress for the SDGs

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ASSESS PROGRESS BY SECTOR

Generally very poor (red), poor (orange) or mixed (yellow) – not a single goal met (green) Sector Agriculture Education Environment Health Soc.Prot

WASH OVERALL % Countries/ Targets 14% 19% No target !

20% <1% 10% 8% Average/ Total Spend 5.2% 16.8% 0.9% 8.6% 3.1% 2.3% 37% Recent Trends Falling Stagnant Mixed Mixed Stagnant Falling Falling 17

60 50 40 30 20 10 0

COMPARE YOUR COUNTRY WITH OTHERS

Debt service levels in Latin American countries Servicio de la Deuda Como % de los Gastos Totales 18

FIGHT GEOGRAPHICAL INEQUALITY

Uganda - unequal education spending exacerbates income inequality, major distortions caused by donor “pet” regions 19

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WHERE NEXT: THE DIAGNOSIS

Analysed 124 countries, all income levels Countries fall into 7 groups of progress 20

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SPENDING – WHERE NEXT ?

Each group can make incremental progress to match spending with each SDG, tailored to own circumstances, Much lower cost/more feasible than aiming immediately for ideal programme budgets with beneficiaries/results clear    In addition, need to publish: in-country geographical disaggregations to track whether combating inequalities “actual” spending reports more rapidly by accelerating auditing, or “preliminary” unaudited data (no ↓ in quality) “budgets by beneficiary”, combining “gender”/”age” (children, elderly)/”other” (eg disabled, ethnic minorities) Systematic annual compilation/validation of data could bring major improvements in global tracking and be very cost-effective 21

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WAY FORWARD ON SPENDING

 Highly positive response from developing countries + development partners Why hasn’t it been done already ? 3 reasons:

Supply-side

– most governments don’t lack will, but lack technical or institutional capacity to change traditional practices 

Donors

- need dramatic scaling up of capacity-building for governments, but to produce data for national monitoring, from which donors draw, not deluge governments with donor needs 

Demand-side

powerfully. . insufficient demand from parliaments and citizens. No lack of will – but don’t know what is best practice so settle for second best, or arent organised to demand data GSW now working with partners (Oxfam, GCE, IBP) to roll out citizen-driven country accountability programmes, which build capacity across all stakeholders, and make the data a powerful tool in the hands of citizens to “turn numbers into nurses”, and fight against poverty and inequality – SEE www.govenmentspendingwatch.org

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