UNDP CARRIES OUT PROJECTS TO IMPROVE COMMUNITY BUDGET
Armenpress
Jun 08 2006
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS: Today five cost-sharing agreements were
signed with five municipalities of the Armenian Ijevan, Masis, Abovian,
Vedi and Dilijan towns. Besides, a Memorandum of Understanding has been
signed with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for
projects in the scope of UNDP Armenia Performance Budgeting project.
In addition, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) presented
the Performance Budgeting Manual.
The ceremony, held in UN House in Yerevan, was attended by
municipality teams, experts of the project, USAID representatives,
as well as representatives of the US Treasury Department, Armenia
Social Investment Fund, government and the media.
Consuelo Vidal, UN resident coordinator/UNDP resident representative,
said the goals of the project are to support further decentralization
in Armenia, strengthen the capacities of local self-governance
bodies, and facilitate accountable and measurable public expenditure
management. It assists in the implementation of performance budgeting
during community planning, monitoring, and evaluation processes
ensuring citizens’ participation in the whole process. This is new
to not only Armenia, but also to the region.
Performance budgeting enables the local population to be part of the
local planning and development process. Wide public participation takes
place during projects’ planning and implementation, enabling public
participation in local development processes, engaging citizens and
local governments in planning and prioritizing together, and making
local governments accountable for the use of their financial resources.
Since its inception in 2005, the Performance Budgeting Project
has generated much interest among local self-governance bodies in
Armenia. This new budgeting process covers the entire strategic
planning process, from situation analysis and assessment, to setting
priorities, objectives and targets, stating outputs and monitoring
indicators, and finally developing an output-based budget.
The Performance Budgeting Project promotes community-level active
citizen involvement in the local development process, accountability
and measurability of municipal services provided to the communities. In
this way, it supports participation and governance at the local level
and also encourages a culture of results.
The “Performance Budgeting in Local Government” training manual also
presented today is a product of a comprehensive and in-depth work
in the framework of the Performance Budgeting initiative supported
by UNDP. The manual presents experiences gained during training
courses, advisory meetings, and joint seminars and actual budgeting
processes conducted in the five pilot towns of Armenia (Ijevan, Masis,
Abovian, Vedi and Dilijan). It provides a detailed description of local
performance budgeting principles, framework, budgeting process phases,
and budget planning, execution, and oversight. It is designed to become
a step-by-step guide for other communities in Armenia and abroad.