Nepal drops down in global rankings on budget accountability

Nepal has slightly declined in efforts to expand public access to budget information, according to the International Budget Partnership’s Open Budget Survey 2021(OBS 2021) which is the world’s only comparative, independent and regular assessment of transparency, oversight and public participation in public budgets in 120 countries. Nepal slid down to 77th in ranking in 2021 from 65 in 2019 in the open budget survey.

Nepal’s transparency score decreased from 41 in 2019 to 39 in 2021 where global average rests at 45 but it is nowhere near the sufficient mark of 61 and is ranked 77th among 120 nations. This indicates that citizens now have less access to timely and comprehensive information they need to participate in decision making and hold the government to account. Though Nepal has increased availability of budget information but failing to publish Year-End-Report in timely manner has lowered the score. The trend of non-production of Pre Budget Statement and Citizen Budget has not changed in 2021 and stays similar to previous years.