IBP Releases the Findings of the Open Budget Survey (2021); Yemen Scores Zero for the Third Time

The International Budget Partnership (IBP) released yesterday, May 31, 2022, the findings of the 2021 Open Budget Survey (OBS), conducted biannually in 120 countries across the world including Yemen.

Yemen has scored zero for the third time on the Open Budget Index (OBI) published by the Washington-based International Budget Partnership (IBP). The index, the world’s only independent, comparable measure of budget transparency, participation, and oversight, is a composite score based on the OBS data.

The research work for this survey was carried out in Yemen by the Social Research and Development Center (SRDC), an independent, non-partisan and non-profit research and community development organization.

OBS measures three different aspects relating to state budgets which are budget transparency, participation and oversight. These aspects include assessing public access to central government budget information, formal opportunities for the public to participate in the national budget process and the role of budget oversight institutions such as the legislature, auditor and other auditing institutions in the budgeting process.

Yemen’s score means that government has not produced the different budget documents during the established constitutional timeframes nor published any state budgets for the period covered by the survey (2020 and 2021).

When it comes to transparency, the survey measures public access to budget information and the engagement of citizens and non-government organizations in decisions relating to how resources are collected, what priorities are set and how these resources are used.

Yemen has a transparency score of 0 out of 100 and this means that the Yemeni government has not produced the required budget documents on the established timeframes nor published them. These documents are the Pre-Budget Statement, the Executive’s Budget Proposal, the Citizens Budget, the Enacted Budget, In-Year Reports, the Mid-Year Review, the Year-End Report, and the Auditing Report.

Similarly, Yemen scored 0 out of 100 in terms of public participation and engagement and this means that the government does not provide any opportunities for Yemeni citizens to participate throughout the budgeting cycle, be that preparation, execution or oversight.

Additionally, the survey addressed the strength of the legislator and auditing institutions tasked with scrutinizing the produced budgets and soundness of financial measures followed at the different phases throughout the budgeting cycle including preparation, approval, execution, oversight and evaluation. It also examines if there are any independent fiscal institutions to provide independent monitoring and oversight for all budget works.

As to the strength of the auditing institution as well as the legislator, Yemen’s score was 6 out of 100 and this is because the oversight by the Yemeni parliament and the Central Organization for Control and Auditing (COCA) is very limited or nonexistent. These public oversight institutions are not currently undertaking any oversight roles.

Budget works in Yemen have been largely undermined by the coup which Houthis launched against the elected President and the government back on September 21, 2014, which turned into a civil war and later a military intervention by the Saudi-led Arab coalition at the request of the Former President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

This ongoing war has brought about new realities on the ground and resulted in duplicate ministries and state institutions. There are currently two authorities: the legitimate government with alternative state institutions based in the interim capital, Aden, and the coup or de facto authorities which run the central state institutions in Sana'a and control most northern provinces.

Yemeni government produced state budgets for the fiscal years 2018 and 2019, but it has failed to produce any state budget in the fiscal years 2020, 2021 or 2022. Furthermore, the state budgets of 2018 and 2019 were partial and produced way behind the timeframes established by the constitution and best practices.

Although they control all central state institutions in Sana’a, Houthis have never produced any budgets since 2015. They are largely accused of widespread corruption and misuse of public resources. They have also failed to pay public servants salaries or support public services.

Assessing the findings from the seven rounds of the OBS, Yemen made an impressive progress between 2012 and 2014, under the National Reconciliation Government, with a total score of 34, but the progress achieved remained below the then global average estimated to be 45 out of 100.

The Open Budget Survey is conducted on a regular basis every two years and the 2021 round is the 7th round in which Yemen is included. The scores of the previous rounds were 10 (2008), 25 (2010) and 11 (2012), 34 (2015), 0 (2017), 0 (2019) and 0 (2021).