An Assessment of the Openness and Transparency of Local Budgets in Belarus
Volume 33, Issue 1 (2021), pp. 41–61
Pub. online: 4 August 2022
Type: Article
Open Access
Open Access
Published
4 August 2022
4 August 2022
Abstract
International experience shows that public participation in the budgetary process and openness in the public sector are necessary
conditions for a proper economic strategy of the state. Financial openness, in the broadest sense, today represents an important
feature of proper fiscal and monetary policy. In a narrow sense, it is more often associated with the openness of the budget process,
especially at the local level. Financial openness contributes to the efficient collection and distribution of public resources. It increases
the responsibility of governments, strengthens the trust of citizens, and eliminates opportunities for corruption. This paper attempts to
develop and test a compact methodology for the operational analysis of online information openness and transparency of the budgetary
process at the local level. The developed methodology involves the use of two criteria: (1) the level of transparency of local
budget, and (2) an assessment of the efforts by authority in ensuring the transparency of local budgets. The basis of the methodology
is expert assessments of the informational significance of particular parts of websites of local authorities in issues of local finance
and budgeting. Based on expert assessments of the significance and actual availability of these information elements, we evaluate an
integrated assessment of the information content of local authoritiy sites in 2020. We interpret the resulting assessment of the information
content of the site with the local budget and finances data as the online openness and transparency of local budgets (Online
Local Budget Index of Transparency, OLBIT). Besides, we evaluate what factors (financial, geographical and demographic) affect
the transparency level measured by the OLBIT.