ABSTRACT
Open government has been claimed as a catalyst for sustainable development from many research platforms and has been advised to be incorporated in the United Nations’ (UN’s) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The government of Bangladesh has taken initiatives in digitization of government activities. This study investigates these initiatives and identifies the challenges for public financial management (PFM). It investigates the openness of PFM, discusses the issue of opening up PFM and identifies the challenges of open PFM. The study uses unstructured interviews, document analysis, website analysis and literature synthesis to reveal the state of play and identifies the challenges of opening up PFM in Bangladesh. It finds that the priority of the government, scarcity of resources, coordination between agencies, a complex administrative environment and the traditional attitudes among the government officials about openness are the main challenges for open PFM.
