In 2021, with funding from the U.S. Department of State’s Fiscal Transparency Innovation Fund (FTIF), FSVC launched a program to assist the Government of Iraq (GoI) in increasing transparency in the budget process and meet international standards in fiscal transparency.
FSVC will structure practical, demand-driven activities designed to achieve specific results and to equip GoI institutions to undertake reforms on their own, thereby ensuring sustainability following the completion of the program. FSVC will implement a 24-month program with two objectives:
1) Increase the GoI’s capacity to publish a timely and detailed Executive’s Budget Proposal. FSVC will ensure the document provides citizens full explanations about the government’s plans for taxation (revenues), spending (expenditures) and borrowing (debt) for citizens and Parliament to be able to debate the Proposal in an informed way.
2) Improve the GoI’s scores in Open Budget Survey concerning the Enacted Budget, Citizens Budget and Mid-Year Review. These documents are part of the key documents that governments should publish to meet international standards in fiscal transparency such as the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey.
Program Impact
To help the Ministry of Finance more easily publish key budget documents, FSVC developed Citizens Budget and Mid-Year Review templates, alongside recommendations on how to ensure that international standards are met.