Child-Responsive Budgeting: budget as an instrument for the realization of child rights Open Forum “The impact of the crisis on children in the south”

Child-Responsive Budgeting:budget as an instrument

for the realization of child rights

Open Forum “The impact of the crisis on children in the south”Brussels, 28 May 2013

Maria Copani, UNICEF Brussels EU Office

Child responsive-budgeting

I. Budget process and the realization of child rightsII. Context analysisIII. ODA response to crisis impactsIV. Increase “value for money”V. How UNICEF can helpVI. How CSOs can help

I. Budget process and the realization of child rights

DONORS BUDGET BENEFICIARY COUNTRY

CIVIL SOCIETY

OwnershipPartnership

Harmonisation/CoordinationFocus on Results

TrasparencyMutual accountability

Realisation of child rights

Child-responsive budgeting:

• Quality information on policies, costs … transparency!• Ensuring participation of stakeholders• Conduct public expenditure tracking• Analyze revenue and expenditure policies• Fiscal space• Advocate for social protection scheme

I. Budget process and the realization of child rights

II. The context analysis (1): Identify how the crisis continues to affect

vulnerable populations and children

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140High-income Countries

Developing Countries

Government Spending: Austerity measures

Source: Ortiz and Cummins, “The Age of Austerity,” Initiative for Policy Dialogue and The South Centre, March 2013

Number of Countries Contracting Public Expenditures as a % GDP, 2008-15

II. The Context Analysis (2): Rights-based Causality Analysis

Causality analysis

Immediate causes: stroke

Underlying causes: no medicine in the clinic, no

prenatal care

Root causes: no MoH policy to ensure services; inadequate budget

allocation to the district

Context analysis

Program impact evaluation

Porgram design and monitoring

Policy dialogue

Right: maternal and infant survival

ODA program: elimination of maternal and infant mortality

Source: UNICEF-EC toolkit on Integrating Child Rights into Development Cooperation

III. Design ODA to Protect Children during Crisis

Aid Modality 1. Budget support Counter austerity measures that affect children

Price stability support programmes, if appropriate Protect the number and compensation of frontline public sector workers Ensure supply of essential drugs and medicines Maintain or increase social protection

Aid Modality 2. Programme support Increase depth and scale of programmes that are most important to protecting child wellbeing

Nutrition/feeding support Improving coverage of health services Youth and adult employment generation schemes Early childhood development programmes

IV. Increase “value for money”1. Ensure money reaches intended beneficiaries: Monitoring public

spending (and budget support) that are key to child outcomes Child sensitive, real time monitoring of public expenditure at the local level,

linking to central level --UNICEF is developing with World Bank Child-focused Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) and Public Expenditure Reviews (PER)

2. Do more with less: Promote economy, efficiency and cost effectiveness in ODA programming and Technical assistance A whole child view – their rights and needs are interdependent, mutually

reinforcing, and inalienable – UNICEF’s Multiple, Overlapping Deprivation Analysis (MODA)

Increase value for money by tackling overlapping deprivations A stunted child will not be helped by nutrition support if her health deprivation is

not address and she gets pneumonia, which will also cause stunting Highly, multiply deprived children are most cost effectively supported through

multi-sectoral, integrated interventions

http://www.unicef-irc.org/MODA/

MODA reveals highly, multiply deprived children

V. How can UNICEF help:

• Analyze crisis impact and apply child-rights perspective in the country context analysis

• Identify priority programmatic areas for children as crisis response

• Monitoring of public expenditures in the most vulnerable communities (UNICEF’s Monitoring for Equity Results System - MoRES)

• Support or provide MODA analyses and integrated interventions

VI. How can civil society help: entry points into the policy-budget cycle for engagement with key stakeholders

VI. How can civil society help

• Informed advocacy• North-south / best use of networks• Policy coordination across NGOs/coalition• Monitor implementation of national strategy on child

rights (across internal and external affairs)• Promote key institutional arrangements (e.g. Minister for

Children)

Thank you!