Environmental impact of Benin's general government budget for fiscal year 2024

Abstract

The State's general budget is a document drawn up by the government and voted by parliament, which forecasts and defines the expenditure and revenue that the State is entitled to incur and collect for the coming year. Benin's budget for fiscal year 2024 was allocated with the aim of continuing to implement the Government Action Program 2021-2026. However, as this action program is perfectly in line with the objectives of sustainable development, it is important to analyze the impact of this budget on environmental components, in order to identify areas where improvements can be made to better take the environment into account. The analysis, based on a mixed approach to data collection (qualitative and quantitative), reveals major challenges both in the budget process and in budget execution. Moreover, although the budget for the 2024 financial year allocates a significant share to capital expenditure for projects linked to the environment, climate change and land use planning, the fact remains that the resources made available by the State budget are not sufficient to drive the long-awaited sustainable socio-economic development. More resources should then be mobilized not only from development partners, but also and above all from the private sector, to support national ambitions in general and the consideration of the environmental dimension in particular in budget planning and execution. Finally, as has been the case since 2019 for gender, it would be useful to produce a note analyzing the environmental sensitivity of the State's general budget.

Keywords: state budget, environmental impact, governance, public policies, sustainable development

Classification JEL : H23, H41, Q51, Q56, Q58

Paper type: Empirical Research