Monrovia, Liberia – Under the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP), the Liberian government has announced the start of a national FY2024 Open Budget Initiative and FY2025 Pre-Budget Consultations all around the nation. Leading the activities meant to improve fiscal transparency and boost public involvement in the budget process will be the Department of Budget and Development Planning Budget.
This year outreach will focus on disseminating the Mid-Year Budget Performance Report, including county expenditures. The outreach will also give citizens especially vulnerable and underprivileged individuals like women groups, disadvantaged young people, persons with disabilities, representatives from civil ociety organizations, private sector, and academia private sector, academia, and identification of their priorities for the FY2025 budget a forum.
These projects seek to guarantee active integration of public voices into budgetary planning. The outreach and pre-budget was launched on Tuesday, September 24, 2024, in Gbarnga, Bong County is being partly supported by the USAID-Local Empowerment for Accountability and Decentralization (LEAD).
These projects represent a major step toward increasing openness and guarantee adherence to important international standards as the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT), the International Budget Partnership (IBP), and the Open Government Partnership (OGP).
The project aims to promote more responsibility and informed public participation in financial matters by giving the availability of important budget information first priority.
This initiative is expected to build on recent development that has seen Liberia’s budget transparency ratings rise from 45% to 52% over the past two years. Recent surveys also show public involvement in budget decisions rising from 6% to 15%.
The government said, it is dedicated to yearly issuing important budget documents and supporting conversations that let community people ask questions about fiscal reports if they are to keep this good momentum.
By the next Open Budget Survey, the recommended initiatives are expected to greatly raise Liberia’s fiscal transparency score to 61% and public engagement score to 20%.
