Rwanda's budget transparency score rose from 50 to 55 out of 100 between 2023 and 2025, according to a survey published by Transparency International Rwanda.
ALSO READ: Rwanda among most improved in global rankings on budget accountability
The Open Budget Survey, conducted by the International Budget Partnership, assessed 82 countries on three areas: access to budget information, public participation in the budget process and oversight by legislatures and supreme audit institutions.
Rwanda ranked sixth in Sub-Saharan Africa with a score of 55, behind South Africa, Benin, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Kenya.
Despite the improvement, Rwanda's 55-point score remains below the 61-point threshold considered sufficient to provide the public with meaningful and comprehensive fiscal information for informed debate on government spending.
Public participation score increased from 16 in 2023 to 26 in 2025, the largest single-round improvement recorded by the country on this measure. However, the report says participation remains in the lowest category.
ALSO READ: MPs approve Rwf7.8tn budget, redirect Rwf400bn to priority sectors
The survey found that the improvement was driven largely by participation mechanisms established by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and districts.
However, Parliament and the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) scored zero on public participation mechanisms.
The report found no public-facing participation mechanism at any stage of the budget process for the legislature, while the OAG had no mechanism allowing the public to shape or contribute to its audit programme.
Apollinaire Mupiganyi, Executive Director of Transparency International Rwanda, said the findings show that the country needs to do more to involve citizens in decisions over public resources.
"Before the budget is approved, the public should participate,” Mupiganyi said, arguing that citizens should have opportunities to provide views on spending priorities.
ALSO READ: Rwanda implements comprehensive reforms to enhance transparency
He said the next challenge was to ensure that citizens, civil society and the media are more involved not only in budget preparation but also in monitoring how public money is spent.
The survey's oversight findings present a mixed picture.
Rwanda's combined budget oversight score rose from 56 to 61. But this masks a sharp difference between the two institutions assessed.
The Office of the Auditor General's oversight score rose from 78 to 89, while Parliament's legislative oversight score increased only marginally, from 44 to 47.
The report shows that legislative oversight has fallen from 64 in 2017 to 47 in 2025, while audit oversight increased from 50 to 89.
Mupiganyi said the strong performance of the Office of the Auditor General was encouraging, but Parliament still needed to strengthen its scrutiny of public spending.
He also said the findings did not necessarily point to a need for new institutions or laws. Instead, the priority should be implementing the existing legal and institutional framework, particularly requirements around publication of budget information and citizen participation.
Mupiganyi said Rwanda's progress should be measured not only against other countries but against the improvements still required within its own public finance system.
The survey identified delays in publishing budget information as another weakness.
Rwanda produces the key budget documents assessed by the Open Budget Survey, but some are not published within the required timelines. The most significant gap concerns the Year-End Report: the FY2022/23 Consolidated Financial Statements were published about 17 months after the end of the fiscal year, against a benchmark of 12 months.
The survey also found that the content of some budget documents remains incomplete, particularly information on historical fiscal performance, fiscal risks, tax expenditures, public assets and other fiscal information.
Jeanette Rwigamba, Head of the National Budget Department at the finance ministry, said the findings should not be treated merely as a scorecard but as an opportunity to improve how budget information is produced and used.
She said transparency should be judged not only by how much information government publishes, but also by whether citizens can understand and use it.
"Budget transparency is most valuable when a citizen can understand how public resources are being allocated,” Rwigamba said.
She added that Parliament needs enough information to scrutinise government proposals and implementation, while oversight institutions need to be able to follow public money and citizens be able to participate in decisions affecting their lives.
Antonia Strachey, East Africa Regional Tax and Public Financial Management Advisor at the British High Commission, welcomed Rwanda's consistent improvement in the survey.
She noted that Rwanda was singled out at the global launch of the Open Budget Survey as one of the countries that has made consistent progress.
"The next important step is how that information is used and how ordinary citizens can understand and use that information,” Strachey said.
The survey report recommends that Rwanda expand opportunities for citizens and civil society organisations to monitor budget execution and provide input on government programmes and service delivery.
It also calls on Parliament to document and publish information on public participation in budget hearings, including hearing schedules, citizen inputs and key findings.
For the OAG, the report recommends establishing formal mechanisms through which citizens and civil society organisations can contribute to audit programmes and investigations, including through citizen participatory audits, social audits and public expenditure tracking.
The report also recommends that Parliament publish committee reports on its analysis of budget proposals, in-year budget implementation and audit findings.