Strengthening Social Security Through Better Budgeting: Enterprise Budget Planning and Control Across the world, social security administrations carry a critical mandate: protect people. They pay pensions to retirees, disability benefits to injured workers, maternity and family benefits to parents, health reimbursements to vulnerable households, and survivor pensions to widows and orphans. When these payments fail, the social contract is shaken. Because of that, budgeting in a social security administration is not a back-office exercise. It is governance. It is credibility. It is the difference between a promise and a payment. Yet in many countries, the budgeting process inside the social security administration is still manual, fragmented, and reactive. This creates avoidable risk: overspending in some programs, underfunding in others, weak forecasting, slow approvals, and limited transparency for boards, auditors, parliaments, and the public. This article explains: Why budgeting is uniquely difficult in social security institutions. What good budgeting and control...