Forgotten Tagging: Exploring the Meaning of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) Accountability in the Public Budget Landscape

ABSTRACT: The 2030 global development agenda sets out 17 sustainable development goals that demand real integration in regional budgeting. This research aims to explore the meaning of accountability of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the practice of budget tagging in Bappedalitbang of West Kutai Regency. Using a qualitative approach with a transcendental phenomenological design, data was collected through in-depth interviews, observations, and analysis of regional planning documents. The results of the study reveal three main dimensions: first, individual planners live the accountability of the SDGs as a moral compass for development, but the bureaucratic system reduces it to a mere administrative routine; Second, tagging has the potential to strengthen fiscal transparency, but public accessibility to budget data is still very limited, resulting in conditions of elitist transparency; Third, the implementation of tagging is faced with systemic unpreparedness in the form of dependence on manual processes, weak coordination across regional devices, instability of digital systems, and mismatch indicators. The overall findings point to the phenomenon of pseudoaccountability, which is accountability that is formally fulfilled but loses substantive relevance to real development impacts. The transformation of tagging into a meaningful accountability instrument requires strengthening institutional capacity, integrating tagging mechanisms from the beginning of planning, and developing local digital platforms that are open to the public.