WHAT CHANGED AND HOW DID OGP CONTRIBUTE?
OGP Commitments Delivered Real Results
- All countries advancing fiscal openness through OGP have achieved concrete results. Examples include newly disclosed data, new legislation mandating greater openness, and greater involvement of civil society organizations (CSOs).
- Growing transparency: In the last 15 years, fiscal transparency has improved in OGP countries, according to the Open Budget Survey (OBS). Between 2010 and 2025, OGP countries improved the transparency of eight key budget documents by 14 percent.
- Improved public engagement: OGP countries have also significantly improved public engagement in the budget process. Between 2017 and 2025, OGP countries improved formal opportunities for meaningful public participation by nearly 50 percent (46.9 percent). This outperforms growth in non-OGP countries during the same period (30 percent).
- OGP countries leading the way: On average, OGP countries publish sufficient information to support informed public debate on the budget at nearly four times the rate of non-OGP countries, according to the OBS. Specifically, more than half of OGP countries meet this benchmark (58 percent), compared to fewer than one in six non-OGP countries (15 percent).
OGP’s Contribution
- Institutionalized reforms: In the Philippines, repeatedly embedding the Seal of Good Local Governance and Citizen Participatory Audits in OGP action plans helped shift them from pilots to core programs. Croatia also used OGP to move from ad hoc transparency to a standardized local budget data and visualization system that better aligns local policies with public interests.
- Multi-stakeholder collaboration: Scotland’s commitment was co‑designed with parliament, fiscal experts, CSOs, and youth groups using the OGP framework for multi-stakeholder collaboration, leading to a Spending Review Framework and budget documents that better link allocations to outcomes and strengthen parliamentary scrutiny.
- Global visibility: Finland’s state spending portal drew inspiration from Ukraine’s Prozorro open contracting reforms, which OGP widely promoted across the Partnership, while Scotland and Croatia’s commitments have been recognized by the now-sunsetted Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) as standout reforms. Peer recognition makes it easier to sustain open budget portals and performance-linked budget documents.
Governments collect and spend billions in public funds to pay for goods and services like education, healthcare, and infrastructure. As a result, the public has the right to know how their taxpayer money is spent. When information about public budgets is transparent, easy to understand, and used to involve members of the public in policy-making, it helps rebuild trust between governments and the people they serve. This is especially important at the local level, where engaging communities in fiscal decisions that directly affect their daily lives can have a considerable impact. For example, countries with robust fiscal transparency measures can see trust levels improve by 10 to 20 percent.
Fiscal openness also has other clear benefits: research shows that policies like open budgets and participatory budgeting can lead to lower deficits and borrowing costs, more targeted budgets, and increased efficiency, revenue, and levels of tax compliance. These reforms can also lead to better governance and development outcomes, such as reduced corruption and lower infant mortality rates.
Since the launch of OGP in 2011, member countries have made significant progress in applying the principles of transparency, participation, and public accountability to open up the budgeting process to the people they serve.
15 Years of Progress
Over the past 15 years, OGP countries have demonstrated a marked improvement in advancing fiscal openness.
For example, 80 percent of OGP countries publish the Executive’s Budget Proposal and Audit Report—two essential documents for open budgets—in a timely manner. Most OGP countries (58 percent) now publish enough information to support informed public debate on the budget, compared to fewer than a third of OGP countries (31 percent) in 2012.
OGP members have also made strides in improving public engagement: nearly all OGP countries (98 percent) have at least one channel for formal public engagement in the budget process, while more than half (56 percent) have channels for engagement across three branches of government. There is also a visible difference between OGP countries and non-OGP countries when it comes to public engagement in the budget process: OGP countries outperform non-OGP countries, more than doubling their OBS participation score.
All countries advancing fiscal openness through OGP have achieved concrete results during their action plans, such as newly disclosed data, new legislation mandating greater openness, and greater involvement of CSOs.
- Legislation: 26 OGP countries (nearly half of countries advancing fiscal openness through OGP) have passed legislation or regulation, successfully institutionalizing fiscal open practices.
- Citizen budgets: 28 OGP countries (about half of countries advancing fiscal openness) have made budgetary information more accessible to the general public, such as through Citizen Budget documents and interactive data visualizations.
- Public participation in policy-making: More than 40 OGP countries have involved the public while implementing fiscal reforms. Participation has taken the form of consultations, collaborative policy-making, and the use of fiscal data to promote accountability. Additionally, in 20 countries, there is evidence that civil society directly shaped the results of the commitment, such as new fiscal policies and practices, as well as participatory budgets.
The OGP platform has played a key role in driving these results. For example, OGP has helped countries institutionalize fiscal openness reforms that began as ad hoc initiatives or pilot projects. The Philippines scaled up the Seal of Good Local Governance and Citizen Participatory Audit initiatives, shifting them from pilots into core programs. In Croatia, the government used its OGP action plans and feedback from the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) to move from ad hoc transparency to a standardized, long-running local budget data and visualization system that now better aligns local policies with public interests.
OGP has also provided a space for peer learning and the benchmarking of progress against global standards. For example, the Philippines is recognized as a model for localizing fiscal openness, inspiring other members’ participatory audits and subnational budget openness efforts. Finland’s state spending portal drew inspiration from Ukraine’s Prozorro open contracting reforms. Croatia, Scotland, and North Macedonia have all featured in OGP and GIFT analyses of standout fiscal transparency commitments, benefiting from peer recognition and technical guidance.
As a result of these efforts, the Partnership has played a significant role in supporting fiscal openness worldwide. Many of the reforms below made tangible improvements to public accountability, such as improved channels for citizens to hold government officials accountable and improved mechanisms for independent fiscal oversight. Additionally, in the case of the Philippines (see more below), reforms have also achieved tangible economic impacts in terms of increased government resource mobilization.
The Philippines
The Philippines has advanced significant fiscal openness reforms through its membership in OGP and its past leading role in GIFT. Across several OGP action plans, the Philippines introduced commitments like the Seal of Good Local Governance to incentivize local governments to disclose budget information and gave CSOs opportunities to shape budget priorities of their localities. The government also launched citizen participatory audits (CPAs) for community members and CSOs, giving them a formal role in strengthening oversight of public funds. One such audit empowered mothers to evaluate public school facilities in Metro Manila, which led to the repair of damaged toilets and water systems. Repeatedly embedding these reforms in OGP action plans helped move them from pilot or donor‑funded projects into institutionalized programs, encouraging the Philippines to expand the program using its own budget. The OGP process required structured collaboration between the Department of Budget Management, Commission on Audit, Local Government Units, and civil society, which supported continuity even as national political priorities shifted. This commitment to collaboration has seen results, with the country winning the 2021 Open Gov Award in recognition of how CPAs have improved public services like health centers, public schools, water, and waste management. By 2023, the Philippines had increased its Open Budget Survey score to 75 out of 100, becoming the most fiscally transparent country in Asia.
Croatia
Croatia’s Ministry of Finance significantly upgraded its fiscal transparency database by allowing users to search local and regional budgets in an open data format and creating a visualization tool for state budget data. Through OGP, the ministry went beyond the minimum legal requirements to standardize and centralize local budget data and build the OpenSpending‑based visualization app. OGP also encouraged collaboration between the ministry, the Institute of Public Finance, and the Open Spending project, bringing in civil society expertise and helping ensure the reliability of the fiscal data. The power of this reform can also be measured by how the country continues to advance fiscal openness beyond this data-sharing initiative. For example, the city of Zagreb won an Open Gov Challenge Award in 2025 for its work to pilot a participatory budgeting process. Building on the success of the pilot, the city is now scaling up a structured, digital participatory budgeting process across all 17 districts.
Armenia
In Armenia, participatory budgeting is reshaping the relationship between citizens and local governments. In 2023, the government piloted this approach in four municipalities, where residents could propose and vote on projects funded by local budgets for the first time. One early success came from a pilot proposal in Abovyan Municipality for a road safety playground, which earned the second-highest number of votes and was selected alongside the top project. Combining play with education, the miniature traffic zone helps children learn road rules in a hands-on way. Building on the pilot’s success, in 2024, the government allocated EUR 1.2 million to co-finance projects and encourage participatory budgeting across Armenia. The approach proved contagious: 17 additional municipalities voluntarily joined, allocating funds and launching their first cycles. In 2025, the government increased funding to EUR 2.3 million, enabling 21 municipalities from the 2024 cycle to implement selected projects, while others began their own participatory budgeting processes independently. Thanks to this program, communities around Armenia have seen tangible results: new playgrounds, park renovations, and youth clubs, all of which demonstrate the impact of public participation in fiscal policy.
Madrid, Spain
In 2016, Madrid launched the “Decide Madrid platform, allowing citizens to propose ideas on topics for the City Council’s budget, vote on project options, and choose among project alternatives and certain public policies. However, the original version of the platform did not involve the public to participate in the final implementation of the selected projects. To address this, the city used its 2017 OGP action plan to increase the budget allocated to projects decided directly by citizens, expand participation, and create spaces for the public monitoring of projects currently in progress. As a result, the participatory budgeting call increased from EUR 60 million to EUR 100 million that year. Out of the new budget, the city allocated EUR 30 million for investments in the city as a whole and EUR 70 million for specific districts. Since then, Madrid has continued to build on this success: the City Council allocated EUR 50 million for the 2024–2025 fiscal year, with winning projects largely focusing on issues related to quality of life, including public health, transportation, and the environment. The city has also made improvements to the functionality of the platform. “Decide Madrid” has become a benchmark for innovation in citizen participation internationally and won the UN Public Service Award in 2018.
Scotland, United Kingdom
Scotland has used its OGP membership to make public spending more transparent and accountable. Through an OGP commitment, the Scottish government introduced a Spending Review Framework that more clearly links expenditure to National Performance Framework outcomes and the Sustainable Development Goals. It also began publishing more accessible procurement spending and contract documentation in line with recommendations from a multi-stakeholder design process, which included representation from international CSOs, the OECD, and youth groups. Co-creation with diverse voices helped ensure that new budget documents and procurement transparency measures reflect the needs of external users, not just internal accounting requirements. The results are already visible. Scottish ministers and finance officials now face greater scrutiny from parliamentary committees, which have new tools to interrogate the budget. In 2025, the Scottish Human Rights Commission used this data to argue that allocations, such as GBP 768 million for affordable housing, are not clearly tied to measurable outcomes, like reduced homelessness. Scotland’s commitment to fiscal openness can be seen in other initiatives too, such as Glasgow’s participatory budgeting process, which won an Open Gov Award in 2023 for its success in implementing community-driven improvements to public spaces.
Looking Ahead
As OGP members look ahead to the future of fiscal openness reforms, the challenge is to move beyond publishing budget numbers to ensure that public spending is actively shaped, monitored, and evaluated by the people it serves. The next phase of fiscal openness will depend on making financial data accessible and user-friendly and linking financial policies to community needs and outcomes through participatory processes. This means institutionalizing transparency and public participation, especially from historically underrepresented groups, throughout the entire budget cycle. Yet transparency and participation alone are not the end goal. Rather, they are the foundation for ensuring that tax money translates directly into better healthcare, education, and infrastructure, while safeguarding against corruption and unmanageable public debt.
OGP members are already stepping up to this challenge to show what the next generation of fiscal reform can look like in practice. For instance, OGP recognized Uasin Gishu County (Kenya)’s ambitious reform to increase fiscal transparency and participatory budgeting. Recognizing that community members often lack timely access to budget documents, the county launched a digital Open Budget Portal and modernized its revenue collection systems. But the county government did not stop at disclosure. By implementing the County Budget and Economic Forum and decentralizing public forums, Uasin Gishu is actively equipping civil society with the fiscal literacy needed to meaningfully shape budget allocations and track service delivery in real time.
Improving how governments track climate finance will also be crucial over the next 15 years, especially as countries mobilize the resources needed for a just transition and the Paris Agreement goals. At the national level, the Philippines is demonstrating how fiscal openness can help address pressing global crises. The government is taking innovative steps to increase the accessibility of climate finance data, which won the 2025 Open Gov Challenge Award. By developing policy proposals that institutionalize citizen participation in climate funding, the Philippines is ensuring that the resources allocated for environmental resilience are spent efficiently, equitably, and driven by the voices of the communities most vulnerable to climate change.
Several interconnected issues will require more attention in the years ahead. As governments manage serious fiscal issues from climate adaptation to economic recovery, debt transparency will be critical to long-term economic health. Without public oversight of national borrowing, governments risk reaching unsustainable debt levels that limit their ability to fund essential services. It will also be necessary to link different types of data, such as open contracting and beneficial ownership, to debt transparency information. Connecting different datasets can give the public and authorities a more holistic view of public finances, enabling stronger oversight and accountability.
As OGP charts its course for the future, it commits to supporting coalitions of reformers who are pushing the boundaries of what open budgets can achieve. By connecting members to peer learning, technical expertise, and global standards, OGP will continue to show why fiscal openness is not just an accounting exercise, but a fundamental tool for building trust and delivering real, tangible results for all.
About the Analysis
The data analysis in this story is based on reporting from OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) and data from the Open Budget Survey (OBS). For the IRM, all assessments of fiscal openness commitments were reviewed to identify specific results. Note that this approach only captures results achieved during action plan periods, so it undercounts the true impact of commitments. Reforms often take several years to produce concrete outcomes, sometimes well after an action plan ends.
For the OBS, the analysis refers to average OGP country scores on two components: 1) Transparency, which assesses the online availability, timeliness, and comprehensiveness of eight key budget documents, and 2) Public Participation, which assesses formal opportunities for meaningful participation in different stages of the budget process. References to publishing enough information to support informed public debate on the budget are based on the OBS benchmark of 61/100 on the Transparency component. This is the threshold at which the International Budget Partnership considers sufficient information to be available for this purpose.
For questions about this data analysis, please reach out to [email protected].