…Babalola, Chukwu, Okoh demand evidence-based reforms, accountability in budget implementation

By: Goodluck E.Adubazi, Abuja.

The International Budget Partnership (IBP) Nigeria has unveiled the inaugural PULSE Summit 2026, a platform designed to examine the gaps between approved budgets and the actual delivery of public services to Nigerians.

The summit, scheduled for September 3, 2026, will be held under the theme, “From Approved Budgets to the Last Mile: Examining Budget Implementation in Nigeria.”

Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, IBP Nigeria Country Director, Olayinka Babalola, said the summit would bring together government officials, legislators, civil society organisations, development partners, frontline actors, community representatives, young people and the media to interrogate what happens between an approved budget and the service eventually received by citizens.

Babalola said the initiative was conceived against the backdrop of persistent concerns over budget implementation and the inability of citizens to consistently see the impact of public spending in critical sectors.

According to her, an approved budget represents only the beginning of the process, as funds must be released to implementing institutions, procurement undertaken, projects executed, and facilities provided with adequate personnel, equipment and supplies before citizens can benefit.

“We often talk about how much was budgeted or how much was spent, but the citizen experiences public finance very differently,” Babalola said.

She explained that public finance becomes meaningful to citizens when medicines are available at health centres, teachers are present in classrooms, water facilities function and social protection payments reach intended beneficiaries.

“PULSE is about understanding what happens between the budget on paper and that experience at the last mile,” She added.

The PULSE Summit initiative, which stands for Public Finance: Unlocking Last Mile Services, will trace the movement of public resources through six stages: Revenue, Budget, Release, Procurement, Service Delivery, and Audit and Accountability.

Babalola said the objective was to identify specific bottlenecks in the chain and develop practical solutions rather than merely attribute poor implementation to broad issues such as corruption.

She  noted that the summit would feature five structured laboratories covering Health, Education, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Social Protection and Public Debt.

According to her, the labs will bring relevant stakeholders into the same room to identify where the implementation chain breaks down, who is responsible for addressing the problem and what practical reforms can be pursued.

Speaking further, Onyekachi Chukwu, Strategy and Policy Lead, IBP Nigeria, said the summit was intended to generate a more structured conversation around budget implementation by combining fiscal data with evidence from communities and frontline service providers.

Chukwu said IBP would present a compendium containing evidence gathered from the sectors under review, including information from civil society organisations and communities on how public services are actually being delivered.

“We’re trying to engender a conversation, and that’s why we’re bringing all the stakeholders together and having them work in a structured manner to actually identify what the problems are,” he said.

He explained that the evidence would be matched with fiscal information contained in budgets and budget implementation reports to determine precisely where the implementation process breaks down.

Chukwu said the breakdown could occur at different points, including revenue generation, fund releases, procurement or actual project implementation.

He warned against treating budget implementation as a single “black box” and simply attributing failures to corruption.

“When we disaggregate everything into its parts, we’re able to identify where the problems are and then find solutions,” he said.

According to him, the ultimate objective is to ensure that funds flow through the system and citizens receive the services promised in the budget.

Responding to questions from journalists, Chukwu acknowledged that tracking budget implementation in Nigeria remains difficult, particularly because budget implementation reports have not consistently been released in the manner required.

He said the existence of multiple budgets running simultaneously had further complicated efforts to determine which budget particular releases and expenditures were being made against.

“By the time you have multiple budgets, it’s difficult to even track which budget releases are being made against,” Chukwu said.

He argued that returning to a clear January-to-December fiscal year would make monitoring budget implementation easier.

Chukwu, however, highlighted IBP Nigeria’s experience working with community-based organisations as evidence that citizen-led budget monitoring can produce tangible results.

He said IBP works with organisations including the Smallholder Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria (SWOFON), Federation of Women Farmers Association of Nigeria (FOMON), and Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) across several states.

According to him, IBP trains community organisations to understand budgets and track allocations, releases and utilisation for specific projects and services.

He said the approach had contributed to increased allocations to primary healthcare and improved timeliness in the release of agricultural subsidies, while community groups have also gained greater access to government decision-making processes.

Chukwu said the experience demonstrated that citizens could play a stronger role in demanding accountability when equipped with the necessary budget information.

Also speaking, Chika Okoh, Senior Programme Coordinator, IBP Nigeria, described PULSE as an innovative platform designed to take the budget accountability conversation beyond the national level and deepen engagement at the local level.

“PULSE is an innovative platform trying to do something different,” Okoh said.

She stressed that while the summit would engage stakeholders at the national level, the initiative would also connect with actors and communities at the grassroots.

According to her, the platform provides an opportunity to bring government officials, development partners, civil society organisations, community representatives and frontline service providers together to develop a clearer understanding of the challenges confronting service delivery.

The organisers said one of the central principles of PULSE is that “approved does not mean released, released does not mean spent, and spent does not mean delivered.”

They explained that a project could receive budgetary approval but experience delays in fund release; funds could subsequently be released but procurement delayed; while a project could also be completed without the personnel, equipment or maintenance required to make it functional.

The summit is therefore expected to focus on tracing the entire chain and determining the exact point at which implementation failures occur.

The organisers said commitments and reform actions emerging from the five labs would be incorporated into a PULSE Reform Tracker to monitor progress, delays and unresolved issues after the summit.

Chukwu said the process would not end with the September summit, stressing that the initiative was intended to become an annual platform.

He said participants would be able to return to previously identified problems and ask whether anything had changed, what had been fixed and why certain challenges remained unresolved.

“The key thing coming up is: you’ve identified the problem, how do we fix it?” he said.

According to him, the process is designed as a continuous loop in which stakeholders would regularly assess progress and determine what needs to be addressed in subsequent years.

The organisers said the long-term objective is to strengthen the connection between the public resources raised and spent by the government and the actual services received by citizens, while promoting evidence, experience, reform and accountability in Nigeria’s public finance system.

The International Budget Partnership Nigeria works with government, civil society and communities to promote public finance accountability, transparency and participation, with a particular focus on strengthening the link between public resources and service delivery.