UN Joint SDG Fund: Transforming Local Authorities’ Budgeting

In efforts to improve accountability and transparency in the budgeting and planning process in local authorities, the United Nations (UN) through the UN Joint Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Fund has been supporting reforms to help local authorities migrate from Activity Based Budgeting (ABB) to the more accountable and transparent Output Based Budgeting (OBB). The OBB allows local authorities to align their budgeting processes and templates with the central government systems. 

Speaking in an interview, Kitwe City Council, Director Finance, Dedu Sakala Mwense indicated that the council experienced some challenges in the transition from ABB to OBB. He, however, noted that unlike ABB, OBB was speaking to the needs of the council, and this resulted in the welcome of the change by both internal and external stakeholders.

“OBB has been our answer to the many budgeting challenges experienced in the past of lack of transparency and accountability. In the new system of OBB, the process is very inclusive of stakeholder participation right from the start, the target for the year is set and stakeholders submit what they would want to be achieved by the end of the financial year,” said Mr. Mwense.

“For example, stakeholders from the market facilities last year requested for toilets and shelters, and by the end of the year the council managed to construct 4×3 toilet blocks and shelters at Kitwe’s Chisokone Market. The successful completion of the toilets and market shelters provided an accountability and transparency test for the council in terms of expenditure, quality delivered and timeframe of service delivery”, he added. 

Josephine Mbewe a salaula (second hand clothes) trader who is one of the many beneficiaries of the newly constructed toilets expressed gratitude, saying that after the construction of the toilets nearby, she no longer worries about leaving her stand for a long time and that the toilets had made conducting business easy because they are located within the market, one does not miss a lot of clients.

Furthermore, Lillian Chishinga a beneficiary of the market shelters explained how challenging it was in the past working from the streets especially in the rainy reason because this meant every time it started raining, she needed to pack her goods to avoid damage, resulting in capital loss, which now is a thing of the past because she was allocated a shelter.  

The UN Joint SDG Fund has trained 104 local authorities out of the existing 116 which has enhanced their capacity in OBB, reaching 91% of the end of year target. Through this enhanced capacity, the local authorities started using OBB for their 2023 budget preparations. To improve local financing and support prudent budget decisions, the programme has supported local authorities with budget analysis, which will lead to the production of the first-ever local authorities budget briefs.

In Zambia, the UN Joint SDG Fund initiative is anchored in National Development Plans (NDPs), which are the government’s modalities to delivering national priorities, and at the same time implement the SDGs in the country. The programme is currently developing and operationalising the Integrated National Financing Framework for sustainable development in Zambia, that will improve development financing to ensure that the SDGs are actualized at national and subnational levels.

Additionally, the programme also intends to contribute to addressing Zambia’s development planning, and financing challenge: chiefly the data, monitoring and accountability. Herein, the programme intended to enhance capacity-building to significantly increase the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant to Zambia.

The Joint SDG Fund is an innovative instrument to incentivize the transformative policy shifts and stimulate the strategic investments required to get the world back on track to meet the SDGs. To date it has funded 200 joint programmes globally focused on integrated social protection or SDG finance, it has stimulated over 1,000+ partnerships working together alongside the UN to support the SDGs and it has tested over 300 innovative solutions to accelerate the 2030 Agenda. The Joint SDG Fund supports the development of financing strategies required for scaled up SDG investment. This work includes strengthening the capacities of the national and sub-national SDG financing architecture and the production of multi-stakeholder financing strategies with the aim of dramatically increasing the scale and improving the focus of SDG investments.