On June 26-27 of this year, within the framework of the EU funded two-year twinning project "Strengthening Parliamentary Oversight in Public finance" between the Parliament of Georgia and the National Academy for Finance and Economics of the Netherlands, Jose Delgado - the head of climate team of the Ministry of Finance of Austria and Magdalena Mandl - the representative of the Budget Strategy, Spending Reviews & International Affairs division of the Ministry of Finance of Austria visited the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) of Georgia.

The Austrian experts conducted the training on green budgeting, which was attended by the staff of the PBO Georgia and the Parliamentary committees.

Within the two-day training, green budgeting was discussed as a bridge between climate policy and budget. The experts shared the experience of Austria, which is one of the advanced countries in terms of green budgeting and discussed in detail both international frameworks and also documents related to green budgeting in Austria (Austrian green budgeting methodology, green spending reviews, climate report to the annual budget), also discussed about green bonds and their importance.

The Austrian experts provided detailed information about the Austrian institutional arrangement in terms of green budgeting, how they collaborate with the line ministries, as well as the parliament and the supreme audit institution, what are the challenges and next steps. The experts particularly emphasized their close cooperation with the PBO of Austria as an independent fiscal institution, which has an important role in the green budgeting process.

The experts gave recommendations for strengthening Georgia and specifically, the PBO of Georgia in the direction of green budgeting.

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