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?