Key Points to Consider

Proper budgeting will reduce the chances of needing to resubmit your budget to IBJ for review. Keep these principles in mind when creating your project budget.

• Comprehensiveness: The budget must encompass all fiscal operations of government, i.e. off-budget expenditure and revenue are prohibited.

• Discipline: Decision-making must be restrained by resource realities over the medium term; the budget should absorb only those resources necessary to implement government policies; and budget allocations should be adhered to.

• Legitimacy: Policy makers, who can change policies during implementation, must take part in and agree to the original policy.

• Flexibility: Decisions should be pushed to the point where all relevant information is available.

• Predictability: There must be stability in macro and strategic policy, and in the funding of existing policy.

• Contestability: All sectors must compete on equal footing for funding during budget planning and formulation.

• Honesty: The budget must be derived from unbiased projections of revenue and expenditure.

• Information: A medium-term aggregate expenditure baseline against which the budgetary impact of policy changes can be measured and accurate information on costs, outputs and outcomes derived should be available.

• Transparency: Decision makers should have all relevant issues and information before them when they take decisions and these decisions and their basis should be communicated to the public.

• Accountability: Decision makers are responsible for the exercise of the authority provided to them.

Please read the World Bank Small Grant Program budgeting guidelines in this section for further reference.