uses NGO oversight including routine checks on specifications in each construction project location, as well as citizen score cards and satisfaction surveys.

## **<u>Box 8: Providing Information on Services and the Role of Citizen Involvement</u>**

<mark>In Brazil, the</mark> _<mark>Sistema Nacional de Informacoes Sobre Saneamento</mark>_ <mark>provides national information on water, sanitation and solid waste service provision. The SNS collects data on 77 operational, financial and quality indicators from 26 regonal and 260 municipal service providers. The information is published on the Internet as well as in a year book and CD.</mark> <mark>A clear case of a gap between the de jure and de facto state of information disclosure is provided by India. A 2006 survey of water and sanitation utilities found that only one third of the information they were legally required to be publish –covering information on licenses, permits budgets and subsidies-- was actually available. Nonetheless, where information is disclosed, Indian experience suggests that this can help to improve services. Parivartan, a citizen’s group, uses the Delhi Right to Information Act to demand information on the status of infrastructure construction budgets, construction projects and repair work. In one case, Parivartan supported residents living alongside an unmaintained road to file a series of information requests which revealed that official records suggested the road had been repaired multiple times, that the work had officially been carried out by the engineering department of the Corporation of Delhi, and that materials had been issued to staff for the repair work. The series of requests pinpointed materials theft within local government as the cause of road deterioration in this case.</mark><sup>24</sup> <mark>The World Bank-supported Orissa State Roads Project will use implementation of the state’s Right to Information Act as the underpinning of governance and anticorruption elements built into project design. A project disclosure policy based on RTI requirements will be supported by new document and information management systems alongside a complaints management system and corruption perceptions surveys. In addition, the project reports business process re-engineering to simplify and standardize department processes, procurement reform including e-procurement, the creation of a Chief Vigilance Officer and third-party monitoring.</mark>

# _Budgeting and Investment Planning_

Evidence of the quality of budget management in 25 heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) suggests there is considerable need for progress, with the average country meeting just over five out of 13 performance benchmarks in the areas of comprehensiveness, credibility, execution and external scrutiny.<sup>25</sup> Budget transparency has been an important target of efforts such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (See Box 9). But similar weaknesses regarding transparency and efficiency are also apparent at the sector level, where planning and project selection procedures are often very weak.

Planning and technical and economic capacity to evaluate projects should both help to provide better criteria for project selection (avoiding the introduction of white elephant investments at the last minute on an ‘emergency’ basis). Improved budgeting will also reduce cases where funding is inadequate to cover ongoing contract payments –such situations place government officials in the position of deciding which contracts get paid first. For example, Paraguay is developing a five year itemized sector budget, a road

> 24 Sources: Satyanand, (2007) and <u>www.parivartan.com, accessed 04/25/07.</u>

> 25 Calculated from p. 36 of Levy (2007).

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