Budgeting for the SDGs: Progress in Budget Reforms, Monitoring and

Accountability for the SDGs

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set an ambitious development agenda

for the coming years. The seventeen goals aim to address the three aspects of
sustainable development – economic prosperity, social development, and
environmental protection. They present a clear opportunity for governments to
make a positive impact on people’s lives.

To deliver on the SDGs, the 2030 Sustainable Agenda and Addis Ababa Action
Agenda commit governments to an open and accountable SDG process. This includes
providing the public with information, strengthening oversight institutions and
enabling public engagement throughout the budget process.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its commitment, including
through Goal 16, to “build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all
levels”, as well as the Addis Ababa Action Agenda’s resolution to “strengthen
national control mechanisms, such as supreme audit institutions, along with other
independent oversight institutions, as appropriate” (paragraph 30), offer an
opportunity to ensure that governments report on their spending and progress
towards the achievement of the SDGs.

This is a critical time for the community of actors that have been promoting budget
transparency, participation and accountability to develop practical approaches that
can strengthen planning, spending and reporting to meet the SDGs.

In this context, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the International
Budget Partnership (IBP) will convene a workshop intended for various stakeholders
engaged in SDG budgeting, monitoring and reporting to share good practices and
develop practical, collaborative actions to help governments fulfill their
commitments to sustainable development.

Meeting objectives, outputs, outcomes and participants

The objectives of the one-day workshop are to:

 Foster policy coherence by anchoring the SDGs in (national?) budgets;
 Share good practices of SDG budgeting, monitoring and reporting; and
 Develop practical approaches at the international and national levels for
effective and accountable spending, monitoring and reporting on the SDGs.

Discussions will focus on the alignment of SDG policies and budgets, how SDG-
related public spending can be monitored and reported on, and how accountability
actors can play a stronger role in ensuring that public resources are used effectively.
We aim for the collaborative solutions developed at the meeting to inform national
and international SDG processes, including country practices and programs, and
voluntary national reviews at the UN High-Level Political Forum.

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Workshop Participants

The workshop will bring together approximately 20 actors committed to SDG

budgeting, monitoring and accountability. Participants will include senior
representatives from the organizations below. It is important that these actors are
committed to the learning and action agenda of the meeting, and to implementing
practical, collaborative solutions after the workshop.

1. Ministries of Finance Various countries have highlighted the alignment of

their budgets with the SDGs as part of their national development strategies
and in their voluntary national reviews at the High-Level Political Forum in
2016. Past research by the International Budget Partnership and
Development Finance looked at governments’ budget transparency practices,
at the relative ease of identifying MDG spending (MDG spending
“readability”), and at budget classification and presentation for both planned
and actual spending. The practices from the research, including eleven
country case studies, can inform more accountable SDG spending and
monitoring.

2. Supreme Audit Institutions

The International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) has
included the SDGs as a crosscutting theme in its strategic plan 2017-2022.
The organization believes that Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) can
contribute to the SDGs by auditing national systems of follow-up, conducting
performance audits of programs that contribute to the SDGs, and assessing
and supporting SDG 16. Within the Latin American Organisation of Supreme
Audit Institutions (OLACEFS), there is a coordinated audit process on the
SDGs led by the Environmental Audit Committee (COMTEMA). Approximately
100 SAIs have expressed interest in conducting cooperative performance
audits on preparedness for SDG implementation in 2018 as part of a capacity
development program on Auditing SDGs led by INTOSAI Knowledge Sharing
Committee (KSC) and the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI). Exemplary
SAIs, such as Brazil’s Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), which has conducted
performance audits and is currently conducting an audit on Goal 2, Target 2.4
on food production and agricultural practices, will be invited to share their
experiences in monitoring and reporting on the SDGs.

3. Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)

Parliaments play an important role in overseeing plans and spending for the
SDGs. The IPU has held regional seminars on the SDGs and adopted
resolutions on SDGs follow-up, which include budget legislation. In various
countries, parliaments coordinate efforts on the SDGs with the executive
branch, support implementation and oversight through a budget committee
and establish a more conducive enabling environment for the
implementation of the SDGs through legislative reform and facilitation of

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 citizen engagement. Such practices can inform how to oversee spending and
reporting on the SDGs.

4. United Nations Development Agencies

In 2016, the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office and the Dag Hammarskjold
Foundation launched their report on “Financing the United Nations
Development System – Current Trends and New Directions”. The authors call
for opening up national budgets for more accountable SDG financing and
offer various ways the UN agencies and governments can support greater
transparency of funding flows and monitoring of the SDGs, including within
the UN’s accountability mechanism, the High-Level Political Forum.

Various UN agencies, such as UNDP, UNEP, UNICEF and UN Women have

been working together to support sector and joined up budgeting, while
UNDESA has been supporting the global follow-up and review agenda,
INTOSAI and SAIs. The UNDP has been supporting SDG budgeting pilots in
various countries, and recently held a knowledge exchange, including a
session on integrating the 2030 Agenda into Planning and Budgeting. UNDP’s
Bureau for Policy and Programme Support has been working with various UN
agencies on policy coherence and joined up budgeting for the SDGs, and has
plans for integrated missions in 40 countries to support SDG planning and
implementation. UNDP has also been involved in discussions regarding the
development of a methodology for SDG indicators on spending.

5. NGOs providing technical assistance and monitoring SDGs

Organizations such as Development Gateway are working with governments
to develop national-level SDG trackers, and Development Initiatives is
tracking SDGs at the village level, as well as populating
their Development Data Hub with sub-national data on domestic spending in
key sectors for selected countries. Development Finance International
advises governments and tracks government expenditure through its
Government Spending Watch.

6. Development partners such as DFID, GIZ, USAID and the World Bank
Development partners are playing an important role in supporting efforts to
strengthen public financial management and accountability for the SDGs.
Their assessments, such as the Public Expenditure and Financial
Accountability (PEFA) framework, are used as data sources for SDG 16.
Within the Global SDG Indicators Framework, for example, the indicator for
16.6 on effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels is
‘Primary government expenditures as a proportion of original approved
budget, by sector (or by budget code or similar) as assessed by PEFA.

Meeting timing, venue and language

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The one-day workshop will be held on May 26th in the proximity of the UN
Headquarters in New York, following the Financing for Development forum May 22-
25.

The language of the meeting is English.

Agenda questions

A few key questions to discuss at the event include the following:

 What are existing studies and practices for effective budget planning,
spending and reporting for the SDGs? What lessons can we draw from
country practices?

 Exploring the range of options on integrating SDGs into the budgets: what are
the key factors to consider while tailoring the approach to country context
and systems?

 What are the challenges and opportunities in SDG budget monitoring and
accountability?

 How are oversight bodies contributing to enhanced budget practices for the
SDGs? What information do they need for SDG monitoring and auditing, and
what information can they produce?

 What can the various actors do together over the next two to three years to
advance practices for SDG budgeting, monitoring and accountability?