Budgetary responses to a global pandemic: international experiences and lessons for a sustainable future

Abstract

Besides the public health concerns and the tragic loss of life, this global pandemic has also generated severe political, social and financial challenges in many countries Besides in-depth case studies, the SI also contains cross-country comparative analyses and conceptual discussion about the revised role of public budgeting Because of these measures, many countries, including those that had strong fiscal discipline and sound budgetary balances before the COVID-19 crisis, anticipate a significant jump in the level of indebtedness [ ]the COVID-19 pandemic also draws our attention to other governance issues, such as the need to have a transparency and accountable budgetary process to deal with supplemental appropriations and re-budgeting (Anessi-Pessina et al , 2020;Kuo et al , 2020;Seiwald and Polzer, 2020), an open dialogue with citizens in budgeting (Cho et al , 2020;Vakulenko et al , 2020), good accounting and auditing practices to prevent frauds and abuse (Ahrens and Ferry, 2020;Ball, 2020;Demirag et al , 2020;Heald and Hodges, 2020) and effective collaborative governance to leverage the resources and capacity of non-governmental actors to address emergency needs (Johanson et al , 2020)