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Cambodia has recorded its strongest result to date in the Open Budget Survey (OBS), scoring 54 out of 100 for budget transparency which is up from 43 in 2023 and above the global average of 45.
The improvement marks a significant rise over the decade, with Cambodia’s transparency score increasing from just eight in 2025 to 54 in 2025, however, the progress remains limited for public and civil society groups to participate in contributing to budget decisions.
OBS assesses about 100 countries across three key areas as budget transparency, public participation and budget oversight. While Cambodia’s transparency score rose to 54 out of 100, its public participation score remained at 2, which demonstrated a gap between access to budget information and citizens’ ability to influence the budget process.
The NGO Forum Cambodia and International Budget Partnership organised a dialogue on OBS on Tuesday, and urged the government to allow public participation in the budget process, including expansion to sub-national levels.
“[We] urge the government to create opportunities for citizens to participate in the national budget process, including sub-national levels,” said Soeun Saroeung, executive director of NGO Forum Cambodia.
Ou Chenda, senior specialist with the General Secretariat of the Public Financial Management Reform Program (GSC) in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, viewed that the score for public participation was “low” for Cambodia, and also in other parts of the world.
“Currently, we do not have specific measures in place to allow the public to participate in the budget process, but the management will consider this in the future,” she said during a panel discussion at the dialogue.
“However, citizens have attended public forums on the budget, where macroeconomic issues were discussed and the budget law was disseminated after it was enacted,” Chenda said.
Local NGO Village Support Group Executive Director Ros Chhorvivorn, who attended the OBS dialogue session, said the public should be given more opportunities to participate in the budget process because government spending directly affects people’s daily lives.
“When the public cannot participate in the budget process, it affects their daily livelihood and their ability to make decisions. People have the right to know about the budget because they pay taxes and want to know how the state spends public money,” she said.
In the past, several development projects did not adequately address local communities’ needs, she mentioned.
“Budget transparency at the commune level remains [unclear] because the process has not been carried out in-depth. Only commune councillors and some villagers participate in the process,” Chhorvivorn said.
Laura Castillo Cabral, program officer of International Budget Partnership, echoed that the mechanism should be opened and not restrict anyone that wants to participate in the process.
“The public should be informed ahead of the process of the scope, what is going to be discussed, and the outcome that is expected of the engagement,” she said.
Laura said the 2025 OBS assessed 18 countries in Asia, including nine countries in East Asia and the Pacific: Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
On average, Asian countries scored 49 out of 100 for budget transparency, 18 for public participation and 52 for budget oversight.
Globally, budget transparency has improved significantly since 2008, with the average score increasing by 29 points. Almost every region recorded gains in transparency, while public participation has increased.
Among 66 comparable countries assessed since 2008, about two-thirds have improved their transparency scores, while 12 countries have more than doubled their scores.
Meas Soksensan, secretary of state at the Finance Ministry, said the government has already taken steps to disseminate information about the budget process through information boards, with the aim of improving budget transparency and public participation.
“The government has done [this], and we do not care whether we receive a score or not because we have paid attention to our communes. Some communes have also increased their budgets,” he said.
The public has often experienced limited participation in the budget process involving decision-marking.
Earlier this month, the Interior Ministry uncovered funding irregularities in commune development projects nationwide, describing them as “systematic collusion and misuse of commune funds”.
