The basis of a successful state is a developed society.

Recently, implementation of the education programme Open Budget Fellowship 2018 has begun, which is presented together with the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan and the ‘Zertteu Research Institute’ Foundation. The aim of the programme is to achieve transparency, accountability in the field of management of state funds, effective participation of the society in it, and also, establishment of a group of competent specialists regarding improvement of dialogue platforms in this area, and development of the community of knowledgeable qualified experts.

It should be noted that the “Openness and Accountability” programme of the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan has been devoting a variety of programmes to increase participation of the society in the budget process and raise the literacy levels for the last couple of years. Budget Fellowship is a continuation of one of these initiatives. Currently, the second stage of the programme Open Budget Fellowship, which is planned as five sessions during the year. We asked the project manager, expert in the sphere of economics Sholpan Aitenova to tell about the programme objectives.

Sholpan Aitenova (S.А.): this project is aimed at preparation of the group of knowledgeable experts in the field of budget and economics. Taking into account that informed citizens form the public opinion in the area of openness and accountability, the main objective of the large-scale project is to create conditions for formation of qualitative social platforms participating in the budget process. But its main feature is that it’s a long-term training programme. With regard to this, we have visited a number of regions of the country, we conduct training workshops of different formats. These events are short-term, so they they are conducted only for one or two days. And the programme consists of five sessions which cover five different essential themes. Each session is designed for four days.

The head of state Nursultan Nazarbayev set the aim — to become one of the top thirty developed competitive countries of the world. At present, a series of steps have been taken for this ambitious aim. However, the enactment of various laws and accelerated development of the country’s economy are not enough for implementation of our good plans. The basis of a successful state is a developed society. I mean, the society should be developed, which closely participates in the mutual dialogue. That is why we decided to gather active experts from different spheres and share our knowledge and experience with them.

The Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan (SFK): What topics does the programme cover?

S.А.: I can’t say that themes of all spheres will be covered. We will train, discuss and analyze transparency of the budget, accountability of relevant competent bodies. During the implementation of the programme, we will start with the question ‘What do we need the transparency of budget for?’ and try to explain themes like ‘What are the sources of income?’, ‘What is the aim of establishment of the National fund?’, ‘What is the expenditure spent on?’, ‘Why is our country considered as socially oriented?’, ‘Why do we make payments?’, ‘How do we plan expenses on health care and education?’, ‘How do these funds have to be controlled by the government and society?’, ‘What is the social control?’, ‘What is the level of our notion of the social audit?’. I have worked in this area for about fifteen years. I guess it is about time I shared my experience gained for this period of time.

SFK: What other projects have been implemented in the sphere of the budget transparency?

S.А.: A bunch of projects together with the International Society ‘Kazakh Tili’ and the ‘Media Orda’ Public Foundation have been implemented. We have conducted training workshops on ‘Transparency and Accountability of Budget’ for journalists, working in Kazakh in the southern and northern regions of the country. We have organized a republican contest among regional journalists, which was aimed at identifying potential of journalists, reporting on economic issues.

In Astana, there was a round table ‘Budget is in the Centre of Mass Media’. Besides, we have implemented a series of activities with local akimats. Visiting rayons and villages, we also continue explaining these topics to representatives of the local authorities and active experts.

FSK: How many participants have been selected and what were the requirements?

S.А.: For the project, we have selected 32 participants out of 85 candidates from different regions of the country. Economists, sociologists, university teachers, print and television journalists, representatives of NGOs, and also, project managers have taken part in it. During the selection process, we paid serious attention to the degree of their interest in the programme and relevance of the research topic.

FSK: The training programme has been implemented for the last two years, and only this year, you opened a Kazakh group. What is the reason of choosing a Russian group last year?

S.А.: As we conduct training workshops mostly in the Russian language, we didn’t know that such events might be of interest for the Kazakh-speaking environment. Therefore, we started implementation of the project with the Russian-speaking group last year. In social networks, there was a surge in social demand from representatives of the Kazakh-speaking environment. The Kazakh group selected this year is very proactive. We are sure that the project with the Kazakh group will be productive too.

FSK: We found out that the second round participants have been selected. Why and by what criteria have they been selected?

S.А.: During the training programme, apart from the provision of training on the set topics above to participants, we undertook the task of selecting the research theme and carrying out a public policy analysis. That is, we wanted to train them to carry out an expert examination of the state policy in various spheres; and based on this, to provide recommendations. The world practice proved that increasing quality of the state policy is achieved with participation of active experts. And for organization of qualitative public participation, every active expert should know the basics, methods and techniques of the public policy analysis. In the first session, we taught this and gave homework. 11 participants that mastered the information and data at the first stage, did all the homework actively and correctly, applying all the methods and techniques which we had taught, were admitted onto the next session.

FSK: Will there be a platform that will unite alumni of the last and this year and make a significant contribution to the development of public participation?

S.А.: What you’ve just said is the biggest and major mission of our project. Until today, we keep in touch with ten participants who completed the training last year. Some of them act as trainers in the current session. 22 participants from these two groups of this year are now completing the training. Uniting all of them, we will create a network of experts in the republic. We are sure that participating in local social life, they will contribute actively to improvement of the quality of budget.

FSK: On the whole, have you taken measures to provide participants with publicity of project researches? It would be good if researches based on social problems were exposed to the public, and probably, they might benefit other people…

S.А.: You are absolutely right. Participant Anna Dudina, which came from Kostanay, has carried out research on effective use of funds allocated for treatment of diabetes. She presented an analysis of that when taking and implementing concrete measures to prevent diabetes, cost indicators of its treatment are estimated to decrease considerably. Apparently, this theme is based on the social problem. There have been plenty of such studies. Currently, participants offer their researches for public discussion on such platforms like the PDIC (Political Decisions Institution Club). In addition, we opened accounts in Kazakh and Russian on Facebook this year. We intend to take advantage of the possibilities offered by such social networks as platforms for discussion and analysis.

FSK: Thank you for the conversation!