Public Participation and the Budget Cycle: Lessons from Country Examples
- Lindsey Marchessault
- Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT)
- International
Public participation in fiscal processes is a relatively new phenomenon. However, governments are increasingly adopting such processes. The objective of this note is to help policy makers create effective opportunities for public participation. In support of this goal, this paper explores diverse country examples on public participation to extract and synthesize lessons on good practices. Examples include the creation of working groups in the Irish Convention, commissions in South Africa, public parliamentary hearings and written submissions in Canada, conferences in Korea, public assemblies and voting in Brazil, hotlines in South Africa and Korea, and joint working teams in the Philippines. The paper discusses public participation in the annual budgeting cycle, outlines some innovative approaches to public participation and concludes by drawing these lessons together into recommendations for both, policy makers and the GIFT standards.
