Enhancing Public Budget Transparency in Botswana: Why and how?

The BIDPA Policy Brief No. 10, authored by Dr Gape Kaboyakgosi - Research Fellow at the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis. This policy brief discusses the need to make Botswana’s budget process more transparent. The objective of the brief is to advocate for the opening up of Botswana’s budgetary process.

Transparent or open budgets both facilitate and support timely, relevant public access to budget information, enhancing citizen participation in the budgetary process. Transparent budgets also strengthen the role and independence of oversight institutions such as Parliament and the Office of the Auditor General - in order to engender budgetary accountability. Click here to read the full report, including recommendations on how the country could improve tranparency on budgetary processes.

Electoral Spending Cycles in Dictatorships

Paper by Joseph Wright, Department of Political Science, The Pennsylvania State University. The paper discusses issues around manipulation of the economy by authoritarian leaders around election time. Evidence from case studies suggests the presence electoral budget cycles in hegemonic dictatorships. However, it is not know if electoral budget cycles exist in other dictatorships. After providing global evidence for an electoral spending cycle, the paper explores one explanation for electoral fiscal manipulation in dictatorships. To deter investment in the opposition, dictators have an incentive toincrease spending in election years. Click here to access the full paper.

 

Global Competitiveness Report 2011 – 2012

The report, is prepared on an annual basis by the World Economic Forum, and includes the Global Competitiveness Index that provides an important basis for comparison of the competitive strengths and weaknesses of more than 140 countries worldwide. In the current edition of the report Botswana falls four places to 80th rank. In the 2008 rankings, Botswana attained a modest improvement of 56 out of 134 countries, but  since then the country has experienced an overall decline in rankings. Click here to access the report. You may also access the Bank of Botswana Governor's speech at the launch of the report by clicking here.

World Investment Report 2011

The report shows that Global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows rose moderately to $1.24 trillion in 2010, but were still 15 per cent below their pre-crisis average. This is in contrast to global industrial output and trade, which were back to pre-crisis levels. UNCTAD estimates that global FDI will recover to its pre-crisis level in 2011, increasing to $1.4–1.6 trillion, and approach its 2007 peak in 2013. This positive scenario holds, barring any unexpected global economic shocks that may arise from a number of risk factors still in play. Click here to access the full report.