A group of civil society organizations participated in the workshop held by Rasheed for Integrity and Transparency (Transparency International – Jordan). The workshop focused on ways to create social accountability in the general budget in order to enhance the role of civil society organizations in practicing their observatory role.
This initiative comes as a step towards establishing a national team to support transparency of the country’s general budget. It is also set to promote transparency and activate participation in the development of the public budget as a mean of achieving democracy and partnership in the formulation of public policies.
Participating parties discussed practices of transparency in the public budget, their role in guaranteeing the right of “access to information” and the importance of social accountability and its role in establishing transparency and preserving the interest of the local community.
The Executive Director of Rasheed Eng. Abeer Mdanat stated: “Our initiative emanates from our deep belief in the importance of civil society organizations’ participation in setting financial policies, and activating their observatory role through working to achieve knowledge of the provisions of the general budget law and enhancing the principles of transparency and accountability in the management of public funds in Jordan”.
Mdanat added that Jordan has scored 63 out of 100 in the 2017 Open Budget Index, increasing 8 points from the year 2015. She stressed that transparency alone is not enough to improve the management of public funds, and that it is possible to make progress on the index through increasing the involvement of key components in the country, and specifically civil society when it comes to planning based on national priorities.
The project is part of a regional campaign implemented in cooperation with Transparency International and German funds, and is currently being executed in four Arab countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Morocco), in cooperation with the Palestinian chapter of Transparency International ‘Aman’. It aims at enabling civil society organizations to have an active involvement and role in social accountability, as well as raising citizens’ awareness of corruption related issues and empowering citizens to report corruption and seek advice through the Advocacy and Legal Advice Center “Yalla Nsolef” by calling the number 0778173601.
Through this initiative, Rasheed seeks to strengthen the values of integrity and apply the highest standards of transparency in order to counter corruption, and adopt the principle of participatory work in developing a comprehensive plan to stand against it, in order to achieve the desired national integrity system.
