module 6: child-responsive budgeting (crb)
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Module 6: Child-Responsive Budgeting (CRB). The budget is the ultimate embodiment of a nation’s priorities as it is a product of political decisions regarding the amount of resources the nation is willing to dedicate to a given policy or programme . Why invest in children?. Ethical argument - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Module 6: Child-Responsive Budgeting (CRB)
The budget is the ultimate embodiment of a nation’s priorities as it is a product of political decisions regarding the amount of resources the nation is willing to dedicate to a given policy or programme.
Why invest in children? Ethical argument
Implement rights, achieve equity Age-sensitivity argument
Childhood is a unique window of opportunity
Economic argument Productivity gains and economic growth
Political argument Social cohesion and democratic
governance
Objective of Child-responsive Budgeting (CRB) Goal is NOT to
create a new classification of expenditures introduce new budget procedures
Goal is to present new criteria apply tools to measure child responsiveness of
allocations to all sectors
A child-responsive budget… Recognizes that all forms and levels of public
spending have a potential impact on children Provides appropriate resource base for
progressive realization of child rights Prioritizes excluded sectors and most
vulnerable Is transparent and allows for effective
participation of key stakeholders, including children
Includes accountability mechanisms
Main challenges Availability of information Openness/priorities of government’s budget work Availability of expertise Dominance of certain ministries, development
banks, IFIs, etc. in designing policies/budget Level of civil society activism and media interest Weak public financial management systems
Role of development partners in ensuring CRB
Raise child rights issues via analysis and advocacy
Develop capacity of stakeholders, including government, to understand and assess child rights
Fund new spending programmes and policy experimentation
Country context analysis Political/institutional, economic and social
Partnering with key stakeholders Children, politicians, social leaders, CSOs, media, private
sector, etc. Policy and budget dialogue
National/sector plans Specific studies Sector working groups Budgeting monitoring Capacity development activities
Mainstreaming CRB in development partners’ strategies
Recommended interventions
1. Perform child-sensitive budget analyses Good starting point
• Classification of Functions of Government (COFOG)
Activities• Identify child-friendly programs, how funded, vulnerabilities
• Analyze amounts, distributions, allocations-expends, gaps
• Look at impact of revenue side policies (e.g. VAT, subsidy)
• Assess impact of different shocks
2. Influence the budget via capacity development and opening decision-making processes Good starting point
• Convene and advocate key stakeholders Activities
• Create spaces for making the budget child responsive• Disseminate analyses, policy dialogue, indicator
development, verify costed plans, feedback forums• Develop tools, trainings, knowledge sharing
Recommended interventions
3. Improve efficiency Good starting point
• Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA)
Activities• Invest in data and information systems• Assess corruption and governance issues• Support media, audit institutions, anti-corruption agencies,
other oversight institutions• Help develop cross-national comparative databases and
indices of budget openness
Recommended interventions
4. Help secure adequate resources to sustain child-responsive policies Good starting point
• Assess current allocations budget often already committed and inflexible to support implementation of new policy
Activities• Perform fiscal space analyses, which consider current
spending, revenue and financing policies
Recommended interventions
5. Carry out evaluations to promote accountability Starting point
• Assess current commitments (sector/national plan)
Activities• Determine outcomes for verification with beneficiaries• Assess potential long-term impacts• Review policy effectiveness• Determine satisfaction of stakeholders• Be a sounding board for determining ‘what works’
Recommended interventions
Group Activity
Case example
2007-13 EU Strategy Paper for a country in East Asia
Background Focal sector is education
~80% supports sector-wide approach in basic education Equity focus: remote areas, minorities, special needs Goal to improve equitable access to quality education
Contribute to govt’s strategy to improve basic educ. Overall quality Governance and management systems Enhance efficiency of planning/budgeting processes
Background (cont) Challenges and risks
Decentralization: • reconciling new roles
Education financing: • low public investment, most funds go to routine expenses (e.g.
salaries) with little room for funding education development Civil service reform:
• limited political will to address big bureaucracy, corruption, inefficiencies, low pay
Transparency: • weak PFM mechanisms and auditing and monitoring
mechanisms
CRB can improve outcomes Child rights are inter-dependent, with
mutually reinforcing effects Without improvements in other dimensions of
deprivations, education outcomes will suffer
Possible design and budgeting enhancements Coordinated or integrated mixture of school-based and
home-base interventions to address other deprivations Multi-sectoral allocations and tracking
CRB can mitigate risksRisk CRB activity Mitigation
Education financing
Raise child rights issues via deprivation and budget analyses/advocacy
Build/present investment cases to MoF Help line ministries to develop child-
sensitive budget proposals
Strengthens national ownership/resource commitment to education programmes
Civil service reform
Highlight impact of low pay/arrears of frontline teachers on learning outcomes
Assess impacts of “back office” functions
Strengthens support for civil service reform
Trans-parency
Open spaces to allow public analysis/ scrutiny of budget allocations and use
Develop capacity of local communities to monitor/track government allocations
Enhances transparency and accountability
Takeaway from this example
CRB can help achieve objectives of EU programmesImproves the design and hence learning outcomesAddresses implementation risks
Context of EU’s new country programme cycleImportant to invest in others’ work aimed at leveraging
government resources for greater child-responsive investments
UNICEF’s approach and some examples
Child allocations and deprivations
Revenue impacts
Fiscal space
Supporting development of plans and budget
Costing universal access to basic education or school building
Briefings/meetings with key decision makers
Creation of cross-sectoral groups
Formalizing govt partnerships
Ensuring widespread participation
PETS
Decentralized monitoring of service delivery
CSOs, EU, World Bank, IMF
PERs
CSOs for analysis/advocacyGovt for analysis, implement- ation and tracking
Publishing information
Adaptable tools to support CRB work Testing the child sensitivity of the budget
Child rights-aware policy appraisal Child rights-disaggregated beneficiary assessment Disaggregated tax incidence analysis
Adaptable tools to support CRB work
Assessing quality and credibility of policies via the budget Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability
(PEFA) Public Expenditure Review (PER) Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks (MBB) Fiscal space analysis
Adaptable tools to support CRB work
Stakeholder assessments Identifying key stakeholders Mapping opportunities to engage different
stakeholders throughout budget cycle Institutional analysis
Group Discussion
Group discussion What are the experiences of CRB in this region?
What are the main challenges/constraints for working on CRB?
What can development partners do to engage more actively in CRB work? How can UNICEF and other CRB partners help?