Usually refers to monitoring expenditure or close examination, scrutiny, follow-up and evaluation of the budgeting process right from planning, allocation and disbursement to implementation. It can be looked at vertically (i.e. how does money flow through a system from national to district to local level), or horizontally (how are disbursements made at one point in the system, are they regular and spent as planned?
Budget tracking can also link to an evaluation of the impact of a particular budget, looking at whether expenditure had the intended impact, or focusing on the impact of different groups of the population.
For example, were people in rural areas impacted in the same way as those in urban areas? How were boys and girls impacted? It is also essential to think through how you intend to use this analysis.
The main purpose of budget tracking is to expose corruption at all level of government, agencies and organization. This what HFDI do in collaboration with other concerned stakeholders and Civil society organizations.