The Open Budget Survey is the world’s only comparative, independent, and regular assessment of transparency, oversight and participation in national budgets.

This locally-led process was conducted with in-country researchers, peer reviewers, and government reviewers who completed 30,000 indicators across all surveyed countries, assessing 672 publicly available budget documents and 299 participation mechanisms.

This latest round comes at a turbulent time of unprecedented challenges. Rising debt, inflation, conflicts, closing civic space and climate change have led to serious setbacks for many. Structural inequality is undermining the promise of democracy to deliver for all. Given these challenges, the budgetary process provides countless opportunities for governments to share information about public resource decisions they are making and their rationale, and to seek community-generated evidence that can help them make better decisions that reflect people’s priorities.

Global budget transparency has increased by 24% since 2008, but it is still well below what is considered sufficient (a score at or above 61 out of 100) to allow for meaningful public engagement. Legislative oversight is also well below sufficient levels, and public participation is rare. Average audit oversight scores are sufficient, but challenges remain to ensure governments follow up on audit reports.