The Open Budget Survey (OBS) is the world’s only independent, comparative assessment of transparency, oversight and participation in national budgets. Most importantly, the survey is undertaken by local partners for local partners. It provides local organizations who spearhead the survey in each country the unique opportunity to collaborate in the collective research process alongside their peers worldwide using the same rigorous methodology to determine their ranking and identify country-specific reform priorities. On February 16th, the International Budget Partnership kicked off the next round of the OBS with the participation of research collaborators across 125 countries, including partners from a set of European Union priority countries in the Western Balkans and Southern Neighborhood (among which Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia).  Thanks to support from the European Union, the International Budget Partnership was able to heed calls from local civil society to expand this round of the survey into two new countries in these regions: Montenegro (Institut Alternativa) and Palestine (AMAN-Transparency Palestine).  For the first time, Palestine will be included in the OBS.