Published 2017
Open budgeting and monitoring for the Sustainable Development Goals:A country-level perspective
By Claire Schouten and John Hendra

John Hendra serves as Senior UN Coordinator in helping the UN development system become more 'fit for purpose' to support implementation of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this role, he provides advisory and change management support to the UN Development Group, to individual UN Agencies and to UN country teams around the world.

Claire Schouten is Senior Program Officer for International Advocacy at the International Budget Partnership, which collaborates with civil society around the world to analyse and influence budgets to improve governance and reduce poverty. Claire Schouten specialises in integrity, transparency, accountability, and participation in public resource management.

These are the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.

One of the key shortcomings of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was that governments were not required to openly, regularly and comprehensively report on the public financial resources they invested in pursuit of the goals. This includes how these funds were raised, how they were spent and what results were achieved. Without this information it has been very difficult to track MDG commitments, investments and outcomes — and to understand why specific goals were, or were not, achieved.