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However, there is no equivalent mandate to report on how line ministries’ and institution’s budgets benefit children directly and indirectly.
As such, it is not possible to ascertain whether children are adequately provided for in the budgets; that is, whether allocations for children are equitable, sufficient and deliver services efficiently and effectively, particularly to the most deprived and vulnerable children. This lack of budgetary analyses from a child-focused perspective can result in under and/or ineffective spending on children, said the rights activists. There are three key legal and policy instruments in Bangladesh that sets the stage for such an initiative: the Constitution of Bangladesh, the National Children Policy 2011 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which Bangladesh ratified in 1990.
Further, Bangladesh has enacted the Children’s Act 2013, ratified relevant ILO Convention, and developed National Plan of Action for children (the most recent being 2005-10). Together, these key legal and policy instruments provide a strong foundation for securing child rights in Bangladesh, and facilitate efforts to advance outcomes for children through more fiscal discipline and budgetary scrutiny.
“We underlined that the Constitution mandates that children may be specially provided for, which presents an opportunity to focus and feature children more in the budget making process. We propose a six-step process such as conduct a children’s needs assessment, advocate greater allocation for children, ensure that allocation meets need, assess utilization against allocation, monitoring and evaluation of input and output and assess outcomes,” said Tayub.
It is needed to ensure that the new budget classification system is more transparent on child spending. Many different ministries and agencies make and implement policy on issues that concern the rights and interests of the children, but it is difficult to determine the total allocation for child spending from the existing budget classification system. The Bangladesh government is currently in the process of finalizing and implementing a new chart of accounts which is more disaggregated than the current coding system. The new system should therefore be more transparent on child spending.
While it is commendable that Bangladesh government mandates budgetary reporting on gender and poverty, there is no reporting on budgeting for children in place yet despite the large demographic minors in this country. Although still a relatively new concept, the increasing prevalence of child-focused budgeting is evidenced by relevant initiatives in diverse countries, from Brazil to Vietnam to the USA. We can set out the example of India where the budget for children disaggregates the overall budget and identifies allocations for children’s issues. Through this process, the Union and State budgets in India are recalculated on the basis of child programmes.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith, in his last budget speech, assured of including the child budget for FY 2015-16. His assurance has been translated into reality and currently the child budget is being piloted in five ministries-Health and Family Welfare, Education, Primary and Mass Education, Social Welfare and Women and Children Affairs.
Tanjila Sumi, a child journalist, hoped that child budget would bring positive change for the children. It is hoped that inclusion of the budgeting for children will progress wellbeing of all the children in Bangladesh.
However, there is no equivalent mandate to report on how line ministries’ and institution’s budgets benefit children directly and indirectly.
As such, it is not possible to ascertain whether children are adequately provided for in the budgets; that is, whether allocations for children are equitable, sufficient and deliver services efficiently and effectively, particularly to the most deprived and vulnerable children. This lack of budgetary analyses from a child-focused perspective can result in under and/or ineffective spending on children, said the rights activists. There are three key legal and policy instruments in Bangladesh that sets the stage for such an initiative: the Constitution of Bangladesh, the National Children Policy 2011 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which Bangladesh ratified in 1990.
Further, Bangladesh has enacted the Children’s Act 2013, ratified relevant ILO Convention, and developed National Plan of Action for children (the most recent being 2005-10). Together, these key legal and policy instruments provide a strong foundation for securing child rights in Bangladesh, and facilitate efforts to advance outcomes for children through more fiscal discipline and budgetary scrutiny.
“We underlined that the Constitution mandates that children may be specially provided for, which presents an opportunity to focus and feature children more in the budget making process. We propose a six-step process such as conduct a children’s needs assessment, advocate greater allocation for children, ensure that allocation meets need, assess utilization against allocation, monitoring and evaluation of input and output and assess outcomes,” said Tayub.
It is needed to ensure that the new budget classification system is more transparent on child spending. Many different ministries and agencies make and implement policy on issues that concern the rights and interests of the children, but it is difficult to determine the total allocation for child spending from the existing budget classification system. The Bangladesh government is currently in the process of finalizing and implementing a new chart of accounts which is more disaggregated than the current coding system. The new system should therefore be more transparent on child spending.
While it is commendable that Bangladesh government mandates budgetary reporting on gender and poverty, there is no reporting on budgeting for children in place yet despite the large demographic minors in this country. Although still a relatively new concept, the increasing prevalence of child-focused budgeting is evidenced by relevant initiatives in diverse countries, from Brazil to Vietnam to the USA. We can set out the example of India where the budget for children disaggregates the overall budget and identifies allocations for children’s issues. Through this process, the Union and State budgets in India are recalculated on the basis of child programmes.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith, in his last budget speech, assured of including the child budget for FY 2015-16. His assurance has been translated into reality and currently the child budget is being piloted in five ministries-Health and Family Welfare, Education, Primary and Mass Education, Social Welfare and Women and Children Affairs.
Tanjila Sumi, a child journalist, hoped that child budget would bring positive change for the children. It is hoped that inclusion of the budgeting for children will progress wellbeing of all the children in Bangladesh.
