CSOs Launch Budget Platform

To improve citizens' active involvement in an Open Government Partnership Program (OGP), Watch Liberia in collaboration with Accountability Lab has launched a Civic Society Organizations (CSO) Budget Platform in the country.

The platform, which was launched in collaboration with the Women’s NGO Secretariat of Liberia and others, on November 3, 2021, is aimed at intensifying CSOs’ active involvement with the workings of the OGP to ensure that some of the challenges are addressed adequately.  

It was attended by several representatives from CSOs and to ensure that they become an active voice in working with the government to make sure that many of these challenges are outlined and addressed.  

Harold Aidoo, Executive Director of Integrity Watch-Liberia, stressed the need to have a very robust and active source that will engage the Ministry of Finance Development Planning (MFDP), and all the sectors that are spending entities including the national legislature to act on the national budgets on citizen’s behalf.

According to him, the civil society budget platform will be the main conduit through which citizens or CSOs can actively interact with the MFDP and all the different sectors that are responsible to execute or implement the budget. 

He named the Ministry of Gender Children Social Protection (MGCSP) and all the sectors adjacent including the national legislature so that the voices of the parties can be mainstream in the budgeting process. 

Mr. Aidoo disclosed that for the past six to seven years the indicators score has been declining as a nation, that the level at which citizens participate in the national budget process has been taken a downward trend, which he believes impacts how development is done, and impact on the kind of parity the government makes to impact the Agriculture, Health and other sectors.” 

He added that not just the budget impacts the microeconomics, but how the budgets would be able to help children, women, people, and people with disabilities. 

Mr. Aidoo also recalled in 2017 the government of Liberia adopted a policy to mainstream gender in the national budget, something that still remains a serious issue. 

“If you look at this, since 2017 the national budgets you can’t actually paint the impact of the budget on gender,” he said. 

He also indicated that if one takes a critical look at the Ministry of Health (MOH), and Ministry of Education (MOE), the percentage of the ministry budget that goes towards paying compensations of staff salaries, buying fuel, for vehicles and stationeries, it takes about 83%, and what actually goes into public sectors investment programs is a drop in the ocean. 

He said: “In case the ministry of health is buying medication, there are different sicknesses that affect many places, women, and children differently and people with disabilities differently. Which percentage of this money is actually going to invest in breast cancer, prostate cancer, or different sicknesses that affect men and women differently?” 

He believes that when there is no data there, the way the national budget is formulated and framed, it makes it difficult for even our civil society to track and see the impact of the budget. 

“This is the reason why the CSO budget platform is needed to become the advocacy arm of civil society that engages all the sectors that are mentioned to make sure ultimately the budgets benefit us,” he said. 

He is also hoping that the platform will be used to work together with the government, development partners, and media outlets to change the paradigm and shift the way the budgets are formulated to ultimately impact the citizens. 

Meanwhile, Lawrence Yealue, Country Director, Accountability Lab-Liberia, said that the launch of the CSO budget platform is timely and welcoming because these are the processes that would help to raise active citizens’ voices. 

He emphasized the need to create awareness and take the information to the people to educate them about the national budget. “And when we shall have left the stage, everyone will know that the voices in the communities are active consistently,” he said. 

He extolled organizers of the program and hailed the initiative as one that can help to shift the discourse in the budget process.