Publication: Empowering Citizens through Budget Transparency in the North-West and Adamawa Regions
Date
2013-06
ISSN
Published
2013-06
Author(s)
Agarwal, Sanjay
Abstract
Citizens often lack information on
the use of public funds. They are usually left out of
allocation decisions and do not have opportuni¬ties to
provide adequate and timely feedback on the use of scarce
resources. Transparency in budgetary processes reduces
opportu¬nities for wasteful and corrupt spending. As a
consequence, and because it can increase trust in
authorities and lead to enhanced tax collections, budget
transparency could increase resources avail¬able to fight
poverty. Therefore, with support from the World Bank, two
regions in Cameroon (the North-West and Adamawa) piloted an
initiative to promote greater budget transparency with three
objectives: simplification, analysis, and disclosure of
budgets at multiple levels (national, regional, divisional,
municipal, school, and health center); awareness and
capacity-building of government officials and local/regional
institutions to promote public dialogue about public
expenditures by encouraging demand-side governance; and
documentation and dissemination of activities. In both the
regions, steering committees under the chairman¬ship of
their governors spearheaded and coordinated the activities
under the initiative. Two local nongovernmental
organizations with expertise in social accountability
approaches facilitated the community mobilization and budget
dissemination process.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Agarwal, Sanjay. 2013. Empowering Citizens through Budget Transparency in the North-West and Adamawa Regions. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20131 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”