Are New PFM Reforms in Francophone Africa Working? Lessons from the Open Budget Survey

This paper revisits the evolution of budget transparency, government accountability, and citizen engagement in the budgetary process in WAEMU and CEMAC countries. We use the Open Budget Survey (OBS) to assess Member States' compliance with the new Harmonized Public Finances Framework and accordingly to measure good governance and budget transparency in the WAEMU and the CEMAC. The Open Budget Survey (OBS) conducted by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) is the only independent, comparable, and regular budget transparency and accountability assessment around the world; the OBS measures whether governments provide enough budget information to their citizens to allow them to be meaningfully part of the budget process in their countries.Our findings show that the state of budget transparency in WAEMU and CEMAC countries is far from rosy. Although significant progress has been made in recent years, most information on the budget process in these countries remains inaccessible to the public. According to the 2012 Open Budget Survey, the performance of the countries surveyed is particularly poor: their average score of 14 is three times lower than the world average score (43) and two times lower than sub-Saharan Africa's average score (31)