State budget transparency With the support of EC and Oxfam from 03/2015 to 03/2018, BTAP Coalition has successfully implemented project: #Promoting transparency, accountability and participation in state budget management#. In collaboration with various stakeholders, BTAP has created forums for experts, researchers, and civil society organizations to discuss and contribute to policy decisions relating to transparency,accountability, and public participation in the state budget management. In addition, BTAP has actively promoted public participation and oversight in state budget management in Hoa Binh and Quang Tri through activities such as capacity building, policy dialogue and oversight initiatives. During the intervention, BTAP has contributed positive changes to state budgetmanagement at both nationaland local levels.

At the central level, in 2017, the Government has published the Executive State Budget Proposal for the first time in history in accordance with the State Budget Law 2015. Thus, civil society organizationsand citizens have opportunity to discuss and comment on draft state budgets 2018 before being passed by the National Assembly. However, independent experts and organizations have stressed that the Executive State Budget Proposal are disclosed with very aggregated data. For more meaningful debates and contribution, Vietnam should disclose more detail information to the public. Currently, state budget is still a challenging topic forcivil society in Vietnam. Therefore, CSOs need a long-term strategy to promote transparency, accountability and participation in the state budget management. As a part of this long - term strategy, BTAP will maintain public debates on the Executive State Budget Proposals at all levels as well as assist National Assembly and People's Council  in the state budget decision-making process. Besides, BTAP will conduct assessment of public programmes funded by state budget such as New Rural Development Programme. BTAP#s assessment on government spending efficiency will be used to influence budgeting process.

At the local level, many activities have been implemented to promote transparency, accountability, and public participation in state budget management. In the period 2015-2018, BTAPhas supported establishment of 12 groups in Hoa Binh and Quang Tri to facilitate community discussion on state budget spending. With BTAP#s support, these community groups have strengthened their capacity and started to take the initiatives for state budget oversight at local level. BTAP experiencehas showed that citizen participation will greatly contribute to more effective state budget spending. However, due to limited resource, our intervention has just focused on 04 districts of 02 provinces. In the future, this oversight model should be maintained to get more experiences and lessons. There lessons should be then shared with other localities for strengthening their state budget management system. On the other hand, practical experiences should be used to advocate government policies related to state budget management such as Decree or Circular guiding Article 16 of State Budget Law 2015 on public oversight of state budget management.

In addition, BTAP has initiated other initiatives such as Provincial Open Budget Index (POBI) for creating public pressure to the Governments for more state budget openness. In 2017 # 2018, POBI has been used to assess state budget openness level in each province basing on local state budget information which are timely available to the public. Despite the first year of implementation, POBI has greatly attracted attention from both Government and public. After launching, 50% of the provinces have responded BTAP on the results of POBI. Currently, the National Assembly (NA) and Ministry of Finance (MOF) has expressed their interest and willingness to work with BTAP on POBI. However, in the first year of implementation, the POBI has just focused on threeaspects including: (i) availability; (ii) timeliness; (iii) completeness. For greater impacts, POBI should be assessed annually andexpanded to other aspects on transparency.

With above analysis, BTAP proposes to continue the next phase of the project "Promotingtransparency, accountability and participation in state budget management# with three main components:(i) Expanding community oversight model to other localities; (ii) Maintain initiatives such as POBI and annual public debates on state budget management; (iii) Advocate for legalization of good practices for state budget management.

The project is aiming at 02 objectives including
(i) State budget oversight model will be expanded to other localities.
(ii) The Government#s accountability to citizen#s recommendations will be improved.

The project will be implemented at both national level (in Hanoi)and local level (in Hoa Binh and Quang Tri province).The national intervention will be lead by CDI with involvement of other organizations including CECEM, VERP and HERC. The Hoa Binh component will be implemented by ACDC; Quang Tri component will be implemented by CDI.

Gender will be integrated in each intervention. Trainings on gender budgeting will be organized for local partners.  Through trainings, local partners will have a clear idea onhow to integrate gender in each activity. During the intervention, gender focal point (CEPEW) will support each partner to design intervention with consideration of gender equality