Budget Process in Moldova: Monitoring Transparency and Promoting Public Control (second year of implementation)

Project title: Budget Process in Moldova: Monitoring Transparency and Promoting Public Control (second year of implementation);

Implementation period: September 1, 2012 – August 31, 2013 (second year of implementation);

Funded by: Soros Foundation-Moldova, Good Governance Program;

Project goal: This is one of our flagship projects that we expect to maintain in long-term. Its purpose is to create the conditions for a better communication among the public institutions involved in the public budget cycle and civil society groups, to augment the budget transparency by providing up-to-date budgetary and economic analysis and to consolidate the public control over the public money through a better information of the citizens regarding budgetary policies and use of public resources;

Main activities:

• Evaluating and tracking the public budget transparency based on the Open Budget Index methodology;
• Monitoring actions of the public authorities that impact budget transparency;
• Elaborating proposals and advocate for policy changes to enhance the budget transparency;
• Promoting budget process understanding in the Moldovan society, raise its policy awareness and educate a sense of involvement and participation;
• Analyzing the budget cycle documents and inform the interested civil society groups using a language accessible for the wider public;
• Organizing public roundtables for open and transparent discussion of the documents, problems and policy issues related to the budget cycle;
• Monitoring the Court of Accounts activity;
• Monitoring the execution of the Court of Accounts decisions;
• Evaluating the efficiency in use of public money across different economic sectors, policy areas and special funds;

Main outputs and outcomes:

• Reevaluation of the budget transparency evaluation report (developed in the first year of project implementation) based on the Open Budget Index methodology;
• Report on the change in budget transparency as result of the project implementation;
• Four economic commentaries on budget drafts;
• Four roundtables for discussion of the project outputs;
• Four quarterly reports on activity of Court of Accounts;
• Two studies on the efficiency in use of public money by sectors and special funds;
• One report on execution of the Court of Accounts decisions;

Project expected impact:

The project will have a number of direct and indirect benefits to the society. In particular, we anticipate a more balanced and fair coverage of national policies and priorities in the budget, a more accurate and adequate reflection of the interests and priorities of different social groups. The project will serve to increase the efficiency of public spending and to reduce corruption. At the same time, the project will help society better learn and practice the basic elements of participatory democracy. Increasing effectiveness and efficiency of the institutions involved in the budget process is another effect that we expect from the implementation of the project. Finally, through a more judicious use of public resources and reduction in budget deficits, the project will contribute to the country’s macroeconomic stability.