Budget Transparency: The International Budget Partnership has just published Working Papers that “address some of the gaps in the literature” on budget transparency , and verify the usefulness of its Open Budget Index as a measure of budget transparency. “As subnational governments are increasingly charged with implementing government spending, a clear understanding of where, when, and how public monies are spent at that level is essential for citizens to hold those governments to account. Recognizing this, as well as the scarcity of academic and policy literature on the subject, the IBP’s Open Budget Initiative commissioned 10 pilot studies. Click here to find summaries, full reports, methodologies, questionnaires, and media coverage from each of these studies.
World Bank: The World Bank Group is considering the development of a “Global Partnership aimed at strengthening beneficiary feedback and participation by supporting civil society capacity to engage with governments to improve development effectiveness.” This website page explains more and seeks public feedback.
Moldova: The World Bank has announced that it is partnering with the government of Moldova to hold a competitive Open Innovation Hackathon focused on the reuse of open data in Moldova.
United Kingdom: WhatDoTheyKnow.com on Jan 12 announced that the website was used to send its 100,000th FOI request.
Consulting: UNDP Serbia and Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Republic of Serbia, are looking for an international expert to prepare a comparative legal analysis of access to information for research purposes. Deadline Jan. 22.
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