A five day workshop was conducted by the International Budget Partnership in Mumbai from 14th to 18th Dec 2009. Dr. Meena Nair and Ms. Prarthana Rao from the PGRG attended the workshop representing PAC. The agenda for the workshop was to fine tune the methodology and study design of each of the IBP’s India initiatives and understand when and where any technical assistance from IBP was required. PAC is being supported by the IBP in its project to ‘Monitor Expenditure and Outcomes to Improve Health Services for Urban Poor Women in Bangalore’. Full project details are available here.

The first three days of the workshop had several sessions on the basics of Budgets in India and also on the Public Expenditure Tracking. Presentations were given by the following:

1. Mr. Ravi from IBP gave a preliminary understanding of the background to Budgets in India at the national and state level, several budget documents that are available in the country and the key information that these documents contain.
2. Social Audit an introduction – Ms. Sowmya from IBP made a presentation on the process of conducting social audit taking the example of their work in Andhra Pradesh on NREGS. A short movie showing the process of PETS being used as a Social audit tool which was conducted in Kenya, was also screened. The movie can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2zKXqkrf2E
3. Mr. Niranjan Pant from the Auditor General Office, New Delhi gave a guest lecture on the role of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) and the Audit Process.

Group exercises were also conducted by the IBP partners which helped organizations to analyse project context and the suitability of interventions. PAC was asked to give a roundtable on it’s project where questions were asked regarding community strategy and details of maternal health services that will be tracked through PETS.

Other IBP Partner representatives were in attendance, including those from:

Samarthan

Centre for Health  and Social Justice (CHSJ)

Initiatives for Development through Participation of Marginalised Sections (IDPMS)

Support for Advocacy to Health Initiatives (SATHI)

Centre for Equity into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT)

National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR)

Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM)

PAC is carrying out the IBP project with significant field support from Centre for Advocacy and Research, Bangalore and is currently looking for more field organizations to partner with.