Anna Belenchuk, MoF Russian Federation Comments from PEMPAL on Draft OECD Shared Toolkit on Budget Transparency Deanna Aubrey, PEMPAL Anna Belenchuk, MoF Russian Federation 29 June 2016

From PEMPAL perspective, budget transparency is a priority Various guidelines, codes, principles e.g. from OECD, World Bank, IMF, IBP, GIFT have been translated into PEMPAL network languages (Russian and Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian). Toolkit is a very valuable technical resource as it collates all key advice into one location – thank you to OECD and all involved! Format very good and easy to follow. Self assessment functionality very important as participation in some formal mechanisms constrained for some PEMPAL member countries by funding availability. Categories of best and advanced practices? Best practice is a moving target – suggest define concept or align with IMF FTE use of ‘good’ and ‘advanced’ practices.

Suggestions based on PEMPAL advanced practices (1) Definition: “Budget literacy is the ability to read, decipher, and understand public budgets to enable and enhance meaningful citizen participation in the budget process”. H.4 Using modern practices of increasing budget literacy among citizens will ensure future demand for budget data and increased citizen engagement in budget process. Budget literacy technologies can be implemented as:   Incorporating Budget Literacy in School Curricula (as a separate subject or as a part of others, for example, Social Studies); in a broader context – using Budget Literacy for different target groups of people (students, civil servants, pensioners, etc.); with a maximum coverage of audience similar to the financial and tax literacy; Advanced Practices BL should include the structured materials for citizens about: - What we pay to the budget; - What can we receive from the budget; - How can we impact on budget decision making process. As a key reference: Overview of International Budget Literacy Practices: Key Findings and Lessons Learned, Harika Masud, World Bank Group, 2015

Examples from around the world Type of Resource Examples Blogs Understanding Fiscal Responsibility Blog (United States) Comics/Cartoons Sofinha and her Gang (Brazil) What’s in it for Us? (New Zealand) Crossword Puzzles National Budget Crossword (Ireland) Datasets on Public Spending A Scuola di OpenCoesione (Italy) Budget Stories (Moldova) Glossaries/Primers The ABC of Taxes (Guatemala) Declaring My Taxes (Costa Rica) Participatory Budgeting Guides Handbook for Schools to Implement Student Participatory Budgeting (Germany) Welsh Government Participatory Budgeting Toolkit (United Kingdom) PowerPoint Presentations Budget Taxation & Government Finances (Ireland) Government Spending (United States) Posters/Graphics/ Wordles National Budget Wordle (Ireland) Tax Expenditure Interactive Graphic (Uruguay) Quizzes/Trivia and Surveys Taxes Trivia (Dominican Republic) Tax Education and Citizenship Survey (New Zealand) Tool Kits/Lesson Plans ‘Tax Matters’. HM Revenue and Customs. [United Kingdom] Overview of Budget 2015: Building Our Future, Strengthening Social Security (Singapore) Training kit for senior pupils, their teachers and parents http://www.firo.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Koncept.pdf (Russian Federation)

Suggestions based on PEMPAL advanced practices (2) H.5 Using different stimuli for promoting budget transparency at regional and municipal levels (as they are closer to the citizens interests) will encourage governments to provide information to ensure the equal rights of citizens to obtain public information from the budgets at all levels of government. It can be implemented as: Domestic regional and municipal Indexes (ratings) of Budget Transparency (Croatia and Russian Federation experience); Analytical annual reviews about best practices in regional and municipal Citizens Budgets and public engagement in the budget process, published and sent to the regional governors (Russian Federation experience); Organizing federal and local competitions using budget data engaging citizens and consulting companies (BudgetApps and Citizens budget annual competition in Russia) Advanced Practices Advanced practices may include using different combinations of stimuli for regional and municipal levels   As key references: Experience of Croatia with Regional Ratings of Budget Transparency: http://www.ijf.hr/transparency Experience of Russian Federation: Regional Rating of Budget Transparency: https://www.nifi.ru/ru/rating/2015/methodology.html Competitions with budget data: http://minfin.ru/ru/opendata/ecosystem/BudgetApps/ http://budget.open.gov.ru/ Analytical annual review with regional citizens budget rating: http://minfin.ru/common/upload/library/2015/12/main/DBDG_LP.pdf

Thank you for your attention!