When governments borrow, someone eventually pays, and it is rarely those who made the decision. Today, roughly 3.6 billion people live in developing countries that spend more on debt payments than on health or education, and as fiscal space shrinks, the accountability questions become impossible to ignore: who authorizes borrowing, what information is disclosed, what is debt being used for and how effective is oversight? These are questions the budget cycle exists to answer, but debt management frequently operates at its margins, limiting legislative scrutiny, restricting audit access, and excluding public participation.

Governments across the Western Balkans and Türkiye are making progress in opening up their budgets, but transparency alone is not enough to build trust. The 2025 Open Budget Survey finds that accountability systems remain too weak to ensure that public money is used in ways people can see, question, and trust. While EU-driven reforms have improved transparency, gaps during budget execution limit access to information and opportunities for scrutiny, leaving room for significant executive discretion in how public funds are spent.

Covering 125 countries, the Open Budget Survey 2023 shows that while governments are sharing more budget information, accountability is still falling short where it matters most. Key decisions about public spending, including essential services like health and sanitation, often remain difficult to track and scrutinize, especially during budget execution when money is actually spent. Legislative oversight has weakened, and although most countries have mechanisms for public participation, these are limited, uneven, and rarely reach the institutions where major spending decisions are made.

When roads go unfinished, medicines don’t arrive, or school supplies fall short, the problem is often not just funding, but how public contracts are awarded and managed. Weak procurement systems create space for inefficiency, waste and corruption, directly affecting the quality of services people rely on every day. This interactive guide helps you connect everyday public service delivery failures to specific public procurement risks. Use the PDF Guide for in-depth reference, or chat with Pro-Cure Bot for step-by-step, country-specific advice.