Innovation in public budget management in the Venezuelan cultural sector

Abstract

The drop in oil revenues since 2014 has severely impacted all activities in the country, a situation from which the cultural sector does not escape. This study analyzes the destination and evolution of the budgetary resources allocated by the Public Power to the culture and social communication sector in the period 2003-2018 according to available official information. In this sense, it proposes an innovation approach to the traditional methods of public management of national resources allocated to the culture and social communication sector, starting from how to consider the effects of the hyperinflationary phenomenon considering the budgetary pragmatics in Venezuela, to the redesign of the institutional model of resource allocation to culture. Through the application of a new method of budget re-expression and using machine learning techniques, a significant drop in the resources allocated to the culture sector is revealed, estimated at about 130 times between 2008 and 2018. Given this fact and the growing need to boost cultural activities, a set of catalytic innovations in cultural public policy is shown, which would take substantial advantage of the fact that the country complies with international recommendations by maintaining the aliquot of 1% of the public budget to the cultural sector.