A Local Budget Transparency Index for Cameroon's Local Councils : Insights from a Benchmarking Exercise
Transparent budgets and public financial management processes constitute a key pillar of good governance. However, while this has been increasingly recognized for national budgets, little attention is paid to subnational budget transparency. To fil...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/19909106/cameroon-budget-transparency-initiative-local-budget-transparency-index-cameroons-local-councils-insights-benchmarking-exercise-cameroon-budget-transparency-initiative-local-budget-transparency-index-cameroons-local-councils-insights-benchmarking-exercise http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20130 |
| Summary: | Transparent budgets and public
financial management processes constitute a key pillar of
good governance. However, while this has been increasingly
recognized for national budgets, little attention is paid to
subnational budget transparency. To fill this lacuna, a
World Bank-supported initiative piloted a local budget
transparency index (LBTI) in two of Cameroon s ten regions.
Thirty-one local councils in the Northwest Region and
nineteen in the Adamawa Region self-assessed the openness of
their budget processes by filling out questionnaires in
2012. The councils were then ranked, the results were
published, and, in Adamawa, discussed in a public meeting
called by the region s governor and attended by mayors and
the media. Through this exercise, mayors of low-ranking
councils were publicly questioned about their low scores,
which led to a palpable desire on their part to better
perform in the next round of the survey. In 2013,
independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) gathered
the same information in a second round of surveys. This note
discusses the methodology, main findings, and results from
the LBTI pilot in the two regions and concludes with key
challenges and lessons learned. |
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