From 30 March to 8 April, 2022, Maputo, Mozambique, hosted the Programme for Training, Empowering and National Ownership of the Online Platform for Simplification and Budgetary Analysis (PALOP-TL e-Budget), which will enable knowledge and technology transfer to the Civil Society Organisations (CSO) that are partners of Pro PALOP-TL IS.
The main objective of the training is to ensure the sustainable use, maintenance and updating of data on this Platform.
The presentation session of the e-Budget platform will begin at 9.00 a.m. on 30 March at Hotel Avenida with speeches by the Deputy Resident Representative of the UNDP in Mozambique, Mr Francisco Roquette, and Mrs Alicia Martin Diaz, Team Leader of the Governance Section of the European Union Delegation in Mozambique, in the presence of the representatives of the OSC Project Partners, namely the Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO) and academia.
Also taking part in this ceremony will be distinguished guests and important actors in this process, such as the Assembly of the Republic, the Administrative Court and the Ministry of Finance of Mozambique, as well as important development partners of the country, including bilateral partners, the United Nations, the European Union, and other figures from Mozambican civil society.
This new phase of knowledge and technology transfer follows the launch of the first Online Platform for CSO from the PALOP-TL that deals with Budget Simplification and Analysis and of the Fiscal Transparency Index of the PALOP-TL. Its main objective is to ensure the sustainable management and maintenance of this important instrument for budgetary transparency and the opening-up of public finance data in the PALOP-TL at the end of the implementation of Phase II of the project.
The 10 days of training will thus ensure that the CSO team involved in this process is able to maintain and update the platform data after the technology is delivered by the Pro PALOP-TL SAI.
The prototype of the PALOP-TL e-budget platform is now available and operational at https://www.paloptl-ebudgets.org, where information can be found on the following PALOP and East Timor budget documents: the General State Budget (OGE) Proposal, Budget Execution Reports (Quarterly Accounts) and General State Accounts (GGE). This programme, which has already passed through Cape Verde, will then go on to the remaining PALOP-TL until February 2022, with the aim of fine-tuning this prototype with important contributions from the aforementioned actors.
With European Union funding, Pro PALOP-TL SAI has been developing the platform based on a process of “design thinking”, taking advantage of the opportunity to introduce innovative product development processes. Through this innovative mechanism it is intended to promote public transparency and social monitoring of the budget, which can be done by academics, researchers, public managers, politicians, citizens, journalists, supreme audit institutions and other relevant institutions that undertake external control of public finances (Inspectorate General of Finance, Ombudsmen of Justice, etc.) and even by public officials who deal with finance.
This model is based on a data transparency methodology with a pictographic representation of budgetary data that facilitates the understanding of, and quick and easy access to, information that is not necessarily accessible to the general public. The members of the CSO benefiting from the SAI PALOP-TL (Phase II) will be trained to be able to use it efficiently so that they can represent budget and public expenditure data in a creative and accessible way, which will empower citizens in these countries to use this type of information to demand better public service delivery.
To achieve this important milestone, the Pro PALOP-TL SAI formed a Task Force made up of a team of experienced consultants and project experts who will guide the programme for training Civil Society Organisations from the PALOP and East Timor to sustainably and appropriately manage a wide range of ICT instruments for the simplification of budgetary documents and public expenditure, with the consequent improvement of the transparency and accountability standards in these countries.
Source: Pro PALOP-TL SAI
Photo: GON – Mozambique
