Step 3: Budget Accountability
This step of the campaign supports budget accountability by tracking budget allocations and disbursement of the increased resources, identifying bottlenecks to disbursement, and assessing and building capacity to increase budget accountability and promote efficient disbursement.
Governments must allocate and disburse resources to improve programs. Advocates should track both existing and new funding and press their government for the efficient release of resources to ensure funding is timely, disbursed in full and reaches the intended recipients. Tracking budget allocations will help to identify bottlenecks and barriers and inform policy options to improve the budget process. Tracking will also inform advocacy in the next budget cycle, help to identify where technical assistance for capacity building is needed and support funding sustainability.
Country Examples
Nigeria: The Legislative Initiative for Sustainable Development (LISDEL) created a Health Security Accountability Framework to track epidemic preparedness budget allocation and disbursement against agreed-upon targets and goals. LISDEL, other CSOs and budget officers at the federal and state levels collaborated to develop the framework’s indicators and identify barriers to tracking epidemic preparedness allocations in federal and state data systems. (For more information about the development of a health security accountability framework in Nigeria, see LISDEL’s brief: “Raising the Accountability Bar for Health Security Financing in Nigeria.”)
After achieving budget increases in Kano, GHAI and advocacy partners identified bureaucratic barriers to disbursing allocated funds. GHAI worked closely with the Kano State Epidemiologist to identify and understand the layers of bureaucratic procedures and approvals which delayed or prevented the disbursement of funds from the new Epidemic Preparedness and Response (EPR) budget line. Understanding the process helped to inform advocacy for budget accountability and address inefficient procedures which delayed or prevented disbursement. At the national level, BudgIT, a civil society organization with expertise in budget accountability, found the absence of disbursement reporting and lack of disaggregated data a systemic challenge to budget tracking. With BudgIT, LISDEL held roundtable discussions to bring together policymakers at the federal level, and from Kano and Lagos, to discuss these barriers. Although challenging to identify quick solutions, the conversations were key to increasing awareness and support for improved accountability among policymakers.
Download case study: Epidemic Preparedness in Nigeria: Making the Case for Increased Federal, State and Local Investments