Youth Responsive Budgeting

Workshop for Senior Government Officials 25 – 26 February 2003

Apia, Samoa

Opening Address

Deputy Secretary of Finance

Introductions

Please state your name and Ministry

Messages given to youth

The messages given to any group in society has important implications for programs and budgets as they are the norms and values which governments will reinforce or seek to change

These messages may be given by parents and relatives, friends, co-workers, the church, traditional leaders, employers, sporting organisations, and government.

These messages may be about how children should be raised, household tasks, education, community roles and duties, independence, respect for parents etc.

Activity 1: Norms and values associated with youth in Samoa

What messages do youth get about what they should do?

What messages do youth get about what they shouldn’t do?

Activity 1: The ‘should’ and ‘should not’ messages associated with youth

What ‘should’ young men do in Samoa?

What ‘shouldn’t’ young men do in Samoa?

What ‘should’ young women do in Samoa?

What ‘shouldn’t’ young women do in Samoa?

Integrating youth issues into public expenditure management in the Pacific

Project summary

The youth responsive budget pilot project in Samoa

ADB RETA: training and capacity building in public expenditure management

Coordinated by the Ministry of Finance

Seven pilot ministries

Project context

Economic reforms in Samoa Social planning and budgeting Growth in ‘people centred’

budgeting internationally

Project goals and activities

The project has adopted 3 core goals and involves a series of activities that seek to further the goals.

Raiseawareness of

the youth issues of

budgets and programs

Promote transparency

and accountability of the youth impacts of

governmentbudgets

Change/adjust programs

and budgets to improve

outcomes for youth

Goals of Youth Responsive Budgets

Goals are

a) interdependent

b) hierarchical

RaiseAwareness

Promote Transparency andAccountability

ChangeBudgets

RaiseAwareness

Promote Transparency

andAccountabilit

y

Change Policies

and Budgets

Filling in the circles with a range of activities

A variety of tasks are undertaken to achieve the 3 goals of a youth responsive budget

Awareness raising activities Youth census data presentation Youth disaggregated data base on early school

leaving Exercises in understanding ‘youth’ Framework that government expenditures that

impact on youth can be specifically targeted to youth, related to public sector employment or general/non youth specific

Audit of ministry programs for their direct and indirect impacts on youth

Project website ADB development of a publication of the Samoan

and RMI pilot for its annual general meeting.

Transparency and accountability activities Ministry of Finance coordination of the pilot

project Linking youth issues to national planning

priorities of the SDS and other planning processes

Youth impact assessments case studies by ministries

Developing youth sensitive performance measures and other monitoring mechanisms

Audit of services by NGO’s to youth Heads of Department meeting with Ministry of

Finance to discuss improvements.

Changing budgets and programs activities Develop the Action Plans for the national youth

policy Identify cross ministry youth issues and

strategies Re-design existing programs to improve youth

outcomes Develop new programs and budget proposals Improve the relationship between social

planning and budgeting?? Develop advocacy capacity of NGOs??

Workshop objectives Clarify the norms and values associated with

Samoan ‘youth’ Understand the role of youth impact assessments

in program and budget development Develop and in-depth knowledge of a major youth

issue in Samoa Identify cross ministry youth issues and strategies Draft a youth proposal and budget and argue its

case Establish the next steps for your ministry in the

project.

Samoan project proposal

Report on the services to youth provided by community groups

Report on school retention and drop out in Samoa

Youth impact assessment What is a youth impact assessment? How do budgets and programs impact on

different groups of young people? Why do youth impact assessments? What are the tools? What are the ways of using youth impact

assessments in Samoa?

What is a youth impact assessment?

Research and analysis that identifies the ways in which young people are affected by government policies, programs and their funding.

All budgets have impactsPolicies, programs and budgets can impact on youth:

Directly (eg secondary schooling) Indirectly (eg poison handling in agriculture) Intentionally (eg provision of youth

apprenticeships in public sector to reduce unemployment)

Unintentionally (eg cuts-backs in public sector employment can reduce the availability of youth apprenticeships)

Different types of impacts Policies, programs and budgets through their

direct, indirect , intentional or unintentional impacts can affect people lives by changing the circumstances of:

Young people

Families and villages

Samoan society and economy .

Why analyse the impact on youth of policies, programs and budgets?

It helps to understand the impact of a program on youth and other groups in order to:

develop new programs

improve existing programs

defend existing programs from budget cuts

Why analyse the impact on youth of policies, programs and budgets?

To know the impacts of your program in order to ensure:

fairness efficiency or ‘value for money’ effectiveness in meeting the needs of

Samoans

Why analyse the impact on youth of policies, programs and budgets?

To promote budget transparency and accountability: within government to community stakeholders to program recipients to donors

Tools for assessing the impact of budgets on young women and young men

Program and policy appraisals Beneficiary assessments Public expenditure incidence

analysis A youth budget impact statement

Youth aware policy appraisal

An analysis, from a youth perspective, of particular policies and programmes funded through the budget

Seeks to discover the ways that policies and programmes, and their funding, reduce or increase youth participation, protection, justice etc.

Involves an detailed investigation of the implications for youth of government activities

Example: South Australian Review of School Retention

Youth beneficiary assessments

A means of finding out what young people think of a program or service

Asks those who receive public services how well the spending on the service is meeting their needs

Data gathering methods include surveys, group discussions, individual interviews

Example: Samoan MYSCA Youth Survey

Youth disaggregated public expenditure incidence analysis

Estimates how the budget is distributed by age group.

It involves a complex technique of measuring the unit cost of a service and multiplying that cost by the number of young males and females using the service

The information from this assessment could be used in a variety of ways including better targeting of programs to young people.

Example: In Pakistan, government spending on public education was estimated to be 26 rupees per female and 56 rupees per male per year in the 1990s.

Youth responsive budget statement This is a report by government, usually in the budget

papers, summarising the direct and indirect impacts of its budget and Ministry programs on young men and young women, girls and boys

It involves using a variety of youth sensitive indicators along with selective use of any of the above tools for analysing impacts

Example: A youth budget impact statement by the Federal Australian government in the late 1980s to demonstrate to the community that youth concerns were being incorporated into the budget.

Youth impact assessment

A case study of early school leavers

Activity 2: Unpacking the impacts of early school leavers

What are the impacts of early school leavers in Samoa in terms of Consequences for young people who

don’t complete their education? Consequences for the families/villages

of early school leavers? Consequences for Samoan society as a

whole?

Activity 3: Defining and responding to the problem

Consider why early school leavers are seen as a problem in Samoa, and by whom.

Identify programs/activities from your Ministry that impact directly or indirectly on the issue of early school leavers.

Discuss the reasoning behind your Ministry’s programs/activities that have an impact on early school leavers.