Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA)

The Southern African Development Community Association of Parliamentary Budget Committees (SADCAPBC) is holding its quarterly conference in Johannesburg on 24th-25th August. Drawing participants from SADC Parliamentary Budget Committees, civil society organisations and think tanks in public finance management, the meeting will help to strengthen legislative budgetary oversight and social accountability.

In particular, this meeting - organised in collaboration with OSISA's Economic Justice Programme and the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust (SAPST) - will focus on transferring knowledge to Chairpersons of SADC Parliamentary Budget Committees on topical issues in development economics. This will be achieved by allowing MPs to interface with civil society organisations and think tanks in economic governance. Sessions during the two-day meeting will cover:

a) Natural resource extraction and accountability framework;
b) Climate change and climate finance;
c) Poverty and inequality in the SADC region - with inputs from the book 'Tearing us Apart – Inequalities in Southern Africa'; and,
d) Tools for budget monitoring analysis as well as gender budgeting.

Background

The prime objective of the SADC Association of Parliamentary Budget Committees (SADCAPBC) is to bring together Budget Committees of Parliament from the SADC region to share experiences on international best practices on the role of parliament in the budget process. The initiative started in May 2011 with the Chairperson of the Budget and Finance Portfolio Committee of the Parliament of Zimbabwe mobilising his counterparts in the SADC region. To date the membership includes Zambia, Namibia, Malawi, Angola, Swaziland, South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. The broad objective is to explore means on how national budgets can be used as a strategic tool to combat poverty in the region. The Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust (SAPST) - an NGO focused on providing technical and financial support to SADC parliaments - is the Secretariat for the Association.

Objectives of the Association

Through bringing on board academia, civic society organisations, think tanks on strategic economic and sector specific themes, guided by objective research, the forum will thus serve as a fertile ground for sharing both domestic and international experience, as well as avail empirical information on international best practice in the budget process. The strategic objectives of the Association are:-

(i) Provide a framework for sharing experiences and information on international best practice in the budget process and oversight.

(ii) Promote the integrity of the public finance management function of SADC countries.

(iii) Strengthening parliamentary capacity, thus enable them to process increasing volumes of economic data and budgetary information.

(iv) Facilitate engagement of Budget Portfolio Committees of Parliament by civic society and interest groups in the SADC region.