The level of access to public finance information in Azerbaijan has never been satisfactory. Unlike ordinary citizens, civil society representatives, periodical press representatives, researchers who are active users of this data have constantly raised the quality of data and the difficulty of obtaining it. Against the background of the development of information technologies, the electronicization of information, the increase in the government’s requirements for the disclosure of information, and the accessibility of electronic services to the population have not been able to solve the problem. From this point of view, the experts of the Public Union for Assistance to Economic Initiatives have prepared a bulletin entitled “Accessibility of public financial information: requirements of legislation, international standards and current situation”.
The purpose of the bulletin is to assess the accessibility of public financial information in the country. In the study, first of all, space is allocated to the legal guarantee of access to public financial information. In this section, the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan and a number of laws, including the laws “On Freedom of Information”, “On Obtaining Information”, “On State Secrets”, and “On the Budget System” have been analyzed in the context of information disclosure obligations. The section also focuses on limitations existing in the legal framework.
In another section of the bulletin, information was provided on international initiatives in the field of information openness and transparency related to public finances. As international initiatives, the IMF’s Fiscal Transparency Code, the PEFA program of the World Bank, the Recommendations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Open Government Data, the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency and the requirements of the Open Budget Index in the field of transparency and accountability were referred to.
The last section of the bulletin is dedicated to the current state of information transparency in the field of public finance. In order to assess the accountability of state institutions and state companies, the department checked their official websites and analyzed their financial reports.