In a context of strengthening governance and transparency in Senegal, the International Budget Partnership Senegal (IBP SN) organised a training session dedicated to media professionals on budget reading and analysis techniques.

As public finance management becomes an essential lever for reforms, particularly in the social sectors, IBP Senegal intends to promote "citizen economic journalism" in the service of collective well-being.

The approach of the annual "budget marathon" has made it necessary to equip journalists with the tools they need to decipher often complex information. The goal: To strengthen the media's capacity to better understand, interpret, and explain budget data to the general public.

Dr. Marième Niana Thiam, a teacher-researcher and Senior Coordinator of the program at IBP Senegal, emphasizes the crucial role of the media: “Journalists are essential relays of budget information. It therefore seemed necessary to us... to give them the necessary tools to understand budgetary analysis and terminology, and thus relay clear and reliable information to citizens.”

The initiative takes on particular importance following the adoption of the law on access to information in Senegal. IBP SN insists that accessing budget documents is only the first step.

“Accessing information is one step. But then you have to be able to analyze it, extract the relevant elements and present them in a way that is understandable to citizens,” Dr. Thiam explained.

The training, which brings together around thirty journalists from various media outlets, also aims to create a network of rigorous budget journalists to fuel an informed public debate on spending management, particularly in vulnerable sectors.

IBP Senegal, which works for the budgetary inclusion of vulnerable communities and the promotion of transparency, hopes to see at the end of this session a "more analytical journalism, better equipped to monitor the state budget and to report critically on public policies".