Executive Summary
The Open Budget Survey 2008 finds that, overall, the state of budget transparency around the world is deplorable. In most of the countries surveyed the public does not have access to the comprehensive and timely information needed to participate meaningfully in the budget process and to hold government to account. This lack of transparency encourages inappropriate, wasteful, and corrupt spending and-because it shuts the public out of decision making-reduces the legitimacy and impact of anti-poverty initiatives.

Although the overall performance paints a bleak picture, there are a number of countries in the Survey that have significantly improved their budget transparency performance over the past two years. The Survey also finds that many more governments could quickly improve budget transparency at low cost by making publicly available the budget information that they already produce for donors or internal use.

The Open Budget Survey provides government officials, legislators, development practitioners, civil society organizations, journalists, and researchers with an independent, comparative measure of government budget transparency in 85 countries around the world. The Survey report also suggests reforms that countries might adopt to improve budget transparency, increase public participation, and strengthen institutions of accountability.

The International Budget Partnership (IBP) undertook this initiative because of the far-reaching implications of improving budget transparency. The provision of timely, useful, and accessible information is a first step toward greater accountability. It allows civil society, journalists, legislatures, and supreme audit institutions (SAIs) to take action to promote effective budget oversight. And greater public participation throughout the budget process can improve the credibility of policy choices and the effectiveness of government interventions.

Open Budget Index 2008 shows worldwide transparency gaps
To easily measure the overall commitment of the 85 countries to transparency and to allow for comparisons among countries, IBP created the Open Budget Index 2008 (OBI) from the Survey.

Only five countries of the 85 surveyed-France, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States-make extensive information publicly available as required by generally accepted good public financial management practices. A further 12 countries provide substantial information to the public.

The remaining 68 countries score poorly on the OBI. The 25 countries that provide scant or no budget information include low-income countries like Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nicaragua, and the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as several middle- and high-income countries, such as China, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia. (See OBI Rankings on pg. 9.)

In 23 of the 25 poorest performing countries, the public cannot even see the Executive's Budget Proposal before it is approved by the legislature. Instead, the public receives the annual budget as a fait accompli. Thus those most directly affected by the ultimate decisions cannot have any meaningful input into the formulation or discussion of the government's budget policies.

Many of the more opaque countries have similar characteristics. They are located mostly in sub-Saharan Africa or the Middle East and North Africa, they are generally poor, are often heavily dependent on foreign aid or oil and gas revenues, and are frequently ruled by autocratic regimes.

Lack of transparency undermines accountability
Almost all countries publish the annual budget after it is approved by the legislature. The exceptions are China, Equatorial Guinea, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. Most countries provide much less information during the drafting, execution, and auditing stages of the budget process. This prevents the public from having input on overarching policies and priorities, improving value for money, and curbing corruption.

Weak formal oversight institutions exacerbate the situation
The obstacles to public oversight of budgeting are often compounded by weak formal oversight institutions. In the majority of countries surveyed, legislatures have very limited powers, time, and capacity to review the Executive's Budget Proposal and monitor its implementation. Likewise, in many countries the supreme audit institutions do not have sufficient independence or funding to fulfill their mandate, and often there are no mechanisms in place to track whether the executive follows up on the SAI's recommendations.

But immediate improvements are possible
Despite the generally poor performance of the countries surveyed, the OBI 2008 offers grounds for hope. Comparisons between the OBI results for 2006 and those for 2008 show that some countries have started to improve their budget transparency over the past two years. In Croatia, Kenya, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, in particular, significant improvements either were influenced by the activities of civil society groups or have created opportunities for greater civil society interventions. Important improvements in budget transparency were also documented in Bulgaria, Egypt, Georgia, and Papua New Guinea.

In addition to these improvements, another hopeful finding is that good performance on measures of transparency and accountability can occur in challenging contexts. For instance, within Africa, Botswana and South Africa have achieved impressive levels of transparency, while Jordan's results are above average for the Middle East and North Africa. Lower income countries Peru and Sri Lanka both provide their citizens with a significant amount of budget information, and Ghana and Uganda score above average among aid-dependent countries.

Finally, the Survey finds that progress could be made elsewhere quickly and at relatively low cost, if there were sufficient political will. Many countries with poor OBI 2008 scores are already producing much of the budget information required for good practice. By making the information they already produce for their donors or internal purposes available to the public, these countries would increase their OBI score. More important, doing so would encourage effective oversight and improve accountability.