The Citizen’s Budget is an important tool for increasing government transparency and promoting citizen participation.
“The Citizen’s Budget” or “Citizen’s Guide to the State Budget” is defined as a simple and concise description of the public interest information on the annual budget and the main areas of public spending. This is a separate document that explains the main proposals of the annual budget and what consequences they will have on the society.
| With the publication of the “Citizen’s Budget” guide, the Government gets an opportunity to explain its budget objectives and directions of activities for the coming year in a simple, non-professional language. |
The guide is an analytical publication that provides the public with the opportunity to learn about the main features of the budget, as well as providing access to more detailed sources of information. This helps citizens to assess the impact of implemented policies on different groups in the society. Although the guide may contain links to more detailed sources, it is in no way intended to be a guide to obtaining information from these sources or to be understood only after reading their contents. The information and presentation of the guide must be sufficient to enable the reader to understand and comprehend it.
Citizen’s budget is aimed at a wide range of public. It should typically be written in accessible language and include visual elements to help non-specialist readers easily understand the information.
The Citizen’s Budget may be developed by civil society organizations (CSOs) or other advocacy groups, but it must be issued and distributed by the government, as it is intended to institutionalize the government’s commitment to “ensure that policies are transparent and accessible.”
Governments must ensure that citizens have a clear understanding of the budget as it directly affects them. By presenting budget information in a more accessible format than the Budget Law or other standard documents, the Citizen’s Budget improves public perception of public financial management.
Citizen’s Budgets should allow for more detailed information. They are not intended to replace budget documents, but aim to provide citizens and civil society with information that will enable citizens, as informed stakeholders, to increase their participation and hold government accountable.
From a citizen’s point of view, the citizen’s budget can be considered the most important document as it is the only budget document issued by the government and intended for the citizens. Currently, budget documents are full of a large amount of digital and technical information, professional terminology that is not comprehensible for the average reader.
Abstract from the “Study of International and Armenian Experience in Presenting Budget Information” conducted by the “Economic Development and Research Center”
