[6] A workshop on public management and data analysis was held for public officials in Chisinau. Participants were trained in using the database on public expenditure (BOOST).

The Head of Finance and Accounting Service of the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology Tatiana Vidrascu stated that “BOOST system is the key tool for public finance transparency. The BOOST system in Moldova is identified with free access to information relating to financial status of the national public budget. Thus, people are informed about the targeting of public money”.

The representative of the NGO “Expert-Grup” Victoria Vlad said that the training was focused on data analysis: “I learned to have a more comprehensive view on data and we are going to pass this message on to our citizens, to strengthen their analytical capacity”.

Alexandru Platon from the Public Policy Institute mentioned that he was pleasantly surprised by the possibilities offered by the BOOST system. “It is a very valuable system for improving the quality of analysis conducted by civil society in formulating policy recommendations for the government. In addition, it opens wide opportunities for informing citizens about the budget process and, possibly, in the future, for creating bottom-up initiatives for accountability of the budget process in Moldova”, added Platon.

In turn, Elena Breahna, consultant at the Ministry of Environment affirmed that “the system for monitoring data from various areas, presented at the training, will make the experts’ work much easier, while raising institutional efficiency and living standards in Moldova”.

It should be reiterated that the Republic of Moldova is the first country to publish data on public expenditure using the World Bank’s BOOST system.

The workshop was organized by the World Bank Institute, in partnership with the e-Government Center.