Partial Two‐Way Mirror: International Organization Budget Transparency
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Author | Rayna Stoycheva,Kim Moloney |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12523 |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
Partial Two-Way Mirror: International
Organization Budget Transparency
Kim Moloney
Murdoch University
Rayna Stoycheva
University of Miami
Abstract
This paper evaluates the budget transparency of international organizations. Building on IMF, OECD, IPSAS, and Open Budget
Survey standards for sovereign-state budget transparency, we create a 93-item budget transparency measure reflective of
international organization characteristics. International organizations are important global dispensers of accumulated knowl-
edge. This includes the purveying of advice on member state budget transparency. Despite this role, we find only partial bud-
get transparency among our surveyed international organizations. Nonetheless, the international organization financial
management and accountability practices were more transparent than their budget process or budget disclosures.
Policy Implications
•International organizations with transparent budgets will increase the legitimacy of their request for member states to
have transparent budgets.
•International organizations without transparent budgets discourage member states and external stakeholders from evalu-
ating its budget efficiencies.
•Global governance transparency is crucial to its success, institutionalization, and ability to solve collective action problems.
Transparency sits at the heart of good governance. Trans-
parent public institutions are linked to economic growth,
democratic consolidation, poverty reduction, manageable
debt practices, and improved governance (Alt, 2006; Benito
and Bastida, 2009). Transparency also encourages market
efficiencies, lowers borrowing costs, eases information
exchange, and may smooth foreign direct investment and
other capital flows (Bessire, 2005; Glennerster, 2003).
Transparent budgets, in particular, encourage ease of
access, present consolidated fiscal activity, contain auditing
procedures, lack special accounts, and disseminate historical
data (Poterba and Von Hagen, 1999). Budget transparency
helps stakeholders assess an organization’sfiscal conditions,
understand its costs, and the benefits of its services (Afonso,
2014; Dye et al., 2011). Governments that encourage budget
transparency tend to be more democratic, have free and fair
elections, and encourage partisan competition (Sayogo and
Harrison, 2013; Wehner and de Renzio, 2013). Globally, trans-
parency helps solve the collective action problems hamper-
ing development (Grigorescu, 2003).
Institutional transparency may be realizable passively
(through requests), forced access (leaking and whistleblow-
ing) and proactively (through websites or documents
released by government) (Meijer, 2014). The Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
observes that such disclosure is crucial to achieving trans-
parency in government (OECD, 2011). Information disclosure
encourages citizen empowerment along with a participatory
and pluralistic political culture with a strong civil society and
independent media. Proactive disclosure helps engage state
citizenry through the embedding of disclosure into citizen
and governmental routines (Dingwerth and Eichinger, 2010).
Budget transparency’s ascent as an important interna-
tional development topic began in the late 1980s. Examples
include the World Bank’s efforts in public financial and
expenditure management, its 1992 embrace of ‘good gover-
nance’, its 1996 highlight of corruption’s negative impacts,
and its 1997 ‘institutions matter’claim (Wolfensohn, 1996).
Since the late 1990s, both the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the OECD have created fiscal transparency codes,
encouraged member states to improve transparency, and
provided the advice which encourages such improvements
(IMF, 2007; OECD, 2002). International Organization (IO)
efforts to boost member state budget transparency are
matched by non-governmental organizations such as the
International Budget Partnership (IBP) (De Renzio and
Masud, 2011). Parallel developments measuring bilateral and
multilateral donor project transparency such as the Interna-
tional Aid Transparency Initiative or the Aid Transparency
Index (of Publish What You Fund) are also operational.
1
©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2018) 9:1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12523
Global Policy Volume 9 . Issue 1 . February 2018
26
Research Article
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