Building the capacity of youth in Mauritius and Seychelles: Improving the effectiveness, transparency and accountability of the national budget |18 February 2021

How do we prepare a budget? Is it only the different ministries who prepare their budget and send it to the Minister for Finance or is there a preparation that goes with it? Do you have a say in that process? To shed more light on these questions Transparency Initiative Seychelles (TIS) in collaboration with the US government’s Fiscal Transparency Innovation Fund (FTIF) programme is planning to organise a two-day symposium whereby stakeholders in the budget formulation process and its oversight come together to raise awareness of the processes and to address queries and concerns from youth groups.

To know more about this symposium, Seychelles NATION spoke to a member of the TIS, Marie-France Watson, who noted that this symposium will target Mauritian and Seychellois youths (18 to 35 years).

“It will focus on the importance of being involved in the budget process, particularly those who are part of youth organisations and entrepreneurs. This symposium/training could be facilitated in either English, French or a combination of both depending on who is attending each respective event. The challenge with training symposiums is that there are different levels of knowledge of public finance. As such, the structure of the sessions and modules are meant to provide participants a strong foundation to be effective participants in the budget deliberation process.”

TIS observed that when a budget is being presented to the National Assembly and subsequently, the people of Seychelles, (2019 budget) “there had been no prior engagement with the people for any input. There is no engagement with the people, post budget-announcement. Media houses have done a couple of interviews on the media channels to gauge experts’ views on the budget and civil society representatives from the Citizens Engagement Platform (CEPS) have given a formal feedback, which again has been featured on media channels. In addition to the budget, this very same month, the Auditor General Report 2019 has been published. The understanding of budget matters and government spending is something which the general mass has very little interest in except in specific cases where they are able to make a direct link to how their lives are impacted. Even in the case of these specific cases, the conversation is usually initiated and led by a few individuals and hardly constitutes a national debate. There is a need to encourage and enable citizens to engage and give quality and appropriate feedback on public spending and budget formulation, explaining elements of the topic in clear and simple language which can be easily understood through presentations, articles and graphics”.

In the symposium, which will be facilitated by a consultant, TIS is planning to bring together representatives from local NGOs, youth organisations, Ministry of Finance, President’s Office and the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

In the first session participants will be able to know more about transparency, participation, and accountability: Why is it important to collaborate with youth? Political will to improve budget transparency, accessibility of budget documents, and citizen engagement particularly of youth offer different stakeholders an opportunity to work towards a common goal.

At the end of the session participants will better understand why transparency, accountability, and participation are important to improve governance, service delivery and efficient resource allocation.

Session 2 will be on national planning, budget formulation and execution: the budget process in Mauritius/Seychelles. The objective of this session is to make participants better understand the planning, budget formulation process in Mauritius/Seychelles. Participants will also understand the importance of a well-capacitated youth to improve accountability and participation in Mauritius/Seychelles.

Session 3 will cover budget documents: budget cycle, content and how to analyse budget documents. At the end of this session, participants will better understand the budget cycle, contents of budget documents, and how they can use this information.

On the second day, the participants will learn the budget accountability ecosystem: oversight, stakeholders and media, oversight institutions such as Parliament and the Supreme Audit Institution are integral to accountability of public resources, what role non-state actors such as the civil society and the media play in ensuring the prudent use of limited resources. The hope is that by the end of the session, participants will better understand the budget accountability ecosystem and how youth can work with accountability stakeholders. The panellists of this session will be representatives of the Finance Committee, Public Accounts Committee, National Audit Office, journalists, CSO representatives and a youth organisation representative.

Session 5 will cover the principles of strategic advocacy: problem identification, communication, and challenges and by the end of the session participants will better understand the basics of developing advocacy plans to be effective partners in the budget process.

As Seychelles moves forward as a democracy, this is an opportune time for our young people to get more involved in this important process. If you are aged between 18 and 35 and would like to participate, or know more about the event, please send an e-mail to tiseychelles@gmail.com

The exact dates of the symposium are yet to be decided upon given the Covid-19 situation.

Vidya Gappy