International Budget Partnership

The International Budget Partnership (IBP) leads a global campaign to promote transparency and citizen participation in decisions about how governments raise and spend revenues. In partnership with civil society organizations, state actors, international institutions, and the private sector, IBP undertakes research, training, and advocacy to ensure that budget decision-making processes are participatory and inclusive and that spending policies promote equity and justice. IBP focuses on deep country work that aims to shift power to marginalized groups and improve service delivery through the Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge (SPARK) program. IBP will also continue to develop and strengthen international standards and collect comparative cross-country data, particularly in emerging areas of importance such as civic participation, emergency spending practices, and engagement of oversight institutions. IBP will continue its focus on supporting country advocacy with the goal of broadening open budgeting and testing countries that might be appropriate for a lighter or full model for future SPARK programming. IBP will also continue to build stronger budget organizations and networks through its ongoing Francophone Africa Network (FAN) and the Latin America Tax Expenditure Research, Advocacy, and Learning (LATERAL) network. IBP will invest more on tax equity by building the skills and political capabilities of a diverse range of country-based civic actors to engage in tax policy debates and processes. IBP has started a leadership transition process to evolve further toward a truly global organization that operates in service to social movements and civic actors around the world to significantly improve the lives of excluded communities. This is an opportunity for the organization to implement its initial set of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals. (Strategy: Inclusive Governance)

The International Budget Partnership (IBP) leads a global campaign to promote transparency and citizen participation in decisions about how governments raise and spend revenues. In partnership with civil society organizations, state actors, international institutions, and the private sector, IBP undertakes research, training, and advocacy to ensure that budget decision-making processes are participatory and inclusive and that spending policies promote equity and justice. IBP’s Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge (SPARK) initiative partners with civil society organizations and social movements to help underserved groups understand the fiscal challenges behind poor service delivery and equip them with the knowledge and tools necessary to effectively advocate for improved public spending. SPARK combines the strength and momentum of large, “bottom-up” advocacy movements with the targeted public finance expertise and experience of IBP to improve basic services for vulnerable communities. In Senegal, the first phase of SPARK brought new actors — social movements — into the fiscal governance space to achieve improvements in budget allocations and service delivery in key sectors prioritized by marginalized groups. These social movements now have a set of capacities and a level of self-confidence that enable them to identify, engage with, and ultimately influence government decisions. During this grant period, in addition to transitioning from a program to a grounded, adaptive, and effective country office in Senegal, IBP will look to deepen and scale this work to ensure that fiscal governance and service delivery systems are more inclusive, responsive, and accountable to the needs of historically excluded groups, especially women and girls in Senegal. This includes officially registering IBP’s office in Senegal and acting as intermediary in the country to support our Inclusive Governance strategy’s grantmaking there.