Open Budget Initiative (MK0099)

Status quo or problem addressed by the commitment: Insufficient transparency in public funds management: Lack of simplified form of the state budget, understandable to citizens and easily available, disabled monitoring of the way the budget is implemented in terms of whether it is within the planned budget by quarters, not publishing a semi-annual report on the implementation of the Budget. Main objective: Increased transparency in public funds management through: -Presentation of the state budget in simplified form understandable to citizens and easily available. -Informing the public about projected revenues and expenditures at the beginning of the year on a quarterly basis, thus providing an opportunity for analysis and comparison of the implementation of the budget in view of the planned. -Informing the public regarding our semi-annual implementation of the Budget of the Republic of Macedonia. Brief description of commitment: Following the adoption of the state budget by the Parliament, the Ministry of Finance will prepare and publish civil budget. A projection of planned revenues and expenditures for the current budget year by quarters will be published at the beginning of the year on the website of the Ministry of Finance. The screening will be done in cooperation with relevant institutions and budget users based on historical data as well as on expectations, announcements and financial plans provided by the budget users. The preparation and adoption of the semi-annual report on the implementation of the budget by the Government will be published on the website of the Ministry of Finance. OPG challenge addressed by the commitment: Approximation of the most important budget document to the citizens and providing additional information to citizens and civil society organizations regarding the design and execution of the state budget will contribute to greater involvement of civil society in monitoring and analyzing the performance of the budget. Reference to the global objectives of sustainable development: Reference to the Objective 16. “Peace, justice and strong institutions” Target 16.6: Development of effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels. The measures of this commitment contribute for improvement of transparency and accountability of the public finance managing institutions. Relevance: Increasing transparency and accountability in the fiscal sphere. Ambition: Expected future continuous publication of the civil budget, the projected income and expenditure and semi-annual report on the implementation of the budget to allow increased access to information regarding public finances.

For Commitment details, please see the IRM reports: Macedonia Mid-Term Report 2016-2018 and Macedonia End-of-Term Report 2016-2018