In a formal ceremony held in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s General Directorate of Budget (DIGEPRES) has officially accepted landmark results from the 2025 Open Budget Survey (OBS) that cement the nation’s position as a global leader in government budget transparency. The country earned an impressive score of 82 out of a possible 100 points in the independent assessment, securing second place globally out of 82 participating nations, trailing only Brazil. Within Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic ranked first overall.
The final survey outcomes were formally presented to DIGEPRES Director José Rijo Presbot by Juan Castillo, executive director of Fundación Solidaridad. The event drew a cross-section of key stakeholders, including senior government officials, national oversight body representatives, delegates from international organizations, members of civil society groups, and technical teams that support the Dominican Republic’s annual national budget development process.
Widely recognized as the world’s only independent, comparative, evidence-based global evaluation of public sector budget transparency, the OBS assesses three core pillars of open governance: public access to detailed fiscal data, formal opportunities for citizen engagement in budget planning and oversight, and the strength of monitoring carried out by national legislative bodies and audit institutions. The 2025 iteration of the survey analyzed fiscal data that was publicly available through December 2024 across all participating countries.
The 2025 report singles out the Dominican Republic as a global standout example of consistent, long-term progress in fiscal transparency. Since the first round of assessments in 2008, the country has surged from a score of roughly 12 points to the 2025 mark of 82, a 70-point improvement that ranks among the largest gains recorded by any nation over the survey’s history. This dramatic progress is attributed to three core drivers: the consistent, timely publication of all critical budget documents, targeted investments that have strengthened DIGEPRES’s institutional capacity, and expanded collaborative partnerships between government bodies and civil society organizations.
In remarks following the formal acceptance of the results, Director Rijo Presbot framed the high ranking as both a formal recognition of decades of national work and a mandate to continue advancing open budgeting practices. He emphasized that meaningful transparency extends far beyond simply publishing government data; its ultimate goal is to strengthen public trust in state institutions and elevate the quality of national fiscal policy debate. Rijo Presbot also noted that the push for open budgeting aligns directly with the governance agenda of President Luis Abinader’s administration, which prioritizes strengthening government accountability, expanding citizen participation in public affairs, and improving the efficiency of public spending across all sectors.