Child budget and our expectations

Bangladesh has made substantial progress in reducing poverty. We have seen consistent 6 per cent economic growth coupled with social development throughout the last decade. Bangladesh is now one of the sixteen countries of the world where the goals of decreasing child mortality rates and increasing primary education for children are almost fulfilled.
These achievements need to continue and be further amplified, especially if Bangladesh is to achieve its vision of becoming a middle-income country by 2021, and reap the full benefit of the much-talked about demographic dividend. Investment in children that currently comprises more than 45 per cent of population must be considered as a continuing priority. Children are the hope, promise and future of Bangladesh, the future of Bangladesh depends on protection and human development of this expanding child population. The government of Bangladesh formulated the National Children Policy 2011 and identified the importance of protection and human development of this child population. The Seventh Five-Year Plan clearly recognises the importance of human development. But a huge gap remains between commitments made to children and their implementation; between declaring children's rights and making rights a reality; between lip service rendered to children and resources budgeted for them.
Therefore things are not as straightforward as on shown achieving the MDGs. Deeper problems exist such as inequality and deprivation. The net enrolment of girls is high in primary education but the drop-out rate is also alarming i.e.  39 per cent (BANBASE). The deprived sections of children are not enrolled in primary schools. There are four categories of deprived children - children with disabilities, poor and street children, indigenous and those from remote areas such as haor areas - who are not part of primary and secondary school education. Among the deprived section, the situation of poor girl children living in urban slums is worse; the girl children of urban slums very often fall victim to sexual harassment, which leads to stopping their schooling or work and compel their helpless parents to marry them off at a tender age. To address these problems priority of investment should be attached to the deprived and poor section of children.
Inadequate allocation for children and the programme priorities of the deprived children are not sufficiently addressed in the national budget as budget formulation process of Bangladesh is non-participatory; there is no scope for citizens of the country to participate in the government's budget formulation process, which is completely prepared by the government bureaucrats. According to Open Budget Index (2012), Bangladesh's score is 58 which is below the score of its neighbour India (68) . Bangladesh's score on the Open Budget Index shows that the government provides the public some information. Bangladesh does not prepare Pre-Budget Statement, Citizens' Budget, Year-End Report and Audit Report (not timely produced and published). Lack of people's participation in the budget making process monitoring makes it difficult to address the problems of children in terms of priority, deprivation and adequacy.
To make the allocation more effective for children, the expenditure should be transparent and there should be a participation and accountability mechanism. The expenditure capacities of government ministries and departments are low. Bangladesh is also facing the problems of corruption and leakage of resources affecting services to the citizens. According to Transparency International global corruption index 2012, Bangladesh's position is 13th among 176 countries, which is certainly impeding the opportunity for child development and ensuring child rights.
Furthermore, the size of public expenditure in Bangladesh is low in comparison to developing countries; the size of the public expenditure in Bangladesh is low (17.6 per cent of GDP in 2011-12) as tax-GDP ratio is low (10.53 per cent of GDP in 2011-12) compared to South Asian countries, which creates challenges for  quality investment in human development.
Children are the future of the country. As a large proportion of the population of Bangladesh are children, the attainment of our overall development goals will be hampered without taking proper care of the development of their health, education and creativity. That is why adequate resource allocation is required in sectors like increasing gender balance in primary and secondary education, ensuring safe drinking water and decreasing the mortality rates of children under five years of age.
Budget is an important process through which the aims and objectives of the government in collecting financial resources, prioritising expenditures, allocation and controlling expenditure are being implemented. In other words, the budget is the key document of the government which determines the collection of funds and allocation of sectors for expenditures. In that regard, the budget is an important document for ensuring and establishing the rights of children. The budget is actually the financial statement of the country which reflects the socio-economic condition of the country. Resource is limited in almost every aspect, so a good economy ensures a fair and equitable distribution of resources to develop the living standards of its people. The financial allocation for government activities, prioritising sectors and devising implementation mechanisms are made available to public through the national budget. Since the national budget has a significant impact on the social, economic, political course of a country, it is always regarded as a crucial document. This indicates the necessity of including the mechanisms of benefiting different quarters of the society, especially the children, in our national budget.
The budget is more important for low income countries including the developing ones, because these countries often fail to fulfil the basic necessities of its citizens. Most of the families of these countries have lower income than the minimum requirement, which bars many of them from spending money for their children. In these cases, the government needs to take steps to ensure the rights of the children. In the developing and lower income countries, their government have more potential to play active roles in ensuring the rights of the children.
Child Budget: Importance and context
First of all, we need to clarify what a child budget means. It doesn't necessarily mean a completely separate budget for children; rather it means the process of identifying the capacity of the government in the national budget by examining the needs of the children. To evaluate the performance of the government in implementing their commitments towards children, the following basic questions can be asked -
l  How much resource is allocated in sectors that benefit the children most.
l Whether the allocation is sufficient or not.
l Whether this allocation is used properly to attain the objectives.
l Whether the activities realistically reflect the needs of the children.
In general, a child budget indicates a system where the needs of children get the topmost priority; specific child-friendly social and financial goals have been set; where the information regarding budget is made available to the children and they will comply with the commitment of the government. This system helps the government to effectively prioritise the needs of the children in allocation in the national budget.
About 39.7 per cent of the country's total populations are under 18 years of age. The future of Bangladesh depends on proper growth and human development of this large portion population. If they are brought up properly, they will turn into resources for the country. Hence, a proper policy and effective planning are needed for making a budget with proper allocation and its proper implementation.
This government has taken many initiatives for child protection and welfare. In the FY 2015-16 the child budget was developed for the first time in Bangladesh. In formulation of the child budget, the five ministries directly related to the development of children have been divided in to three categories. The health and family welfare ministry falls under the category one while the education and primary and mass education ministries are in the category two. Social welfare, and women and children affairs ministries are in the category three.
The incumbent finance minister said in his previous budget speech about preparing a child budget on an experimental basis from the FY 2015-16. Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance presented a report titled "Shishuder Niye Budget Vabna" (Budget thoughts for Children) taking into account the budgetary allocations of five ministries directly related to socioeconomic development of children. In formulating this report the ministry of finance (MoF) considered the projects, programmes, and other initiatives directly dealing with the needs, rights and welfare of children. In fact, the child budget is a subject that encompasses the activities of all ministries. In order to complete a child budget the initiatives of all the ministries dealing with children's welfare should be taken into consideration. But in the first place, the MoF needs to identify all these programmes and build a proper framework to evaluate their impacts. The MoF undertakes a project named "Strengthening Capacity for Child Focused Budgeting in Bangladesh (SC-CFB)" which already started from July 2015. Through implementation of the project, the capacity of the Finance Division and other child related ministries in terms of proper utilisation of resources and its reporting will be enhanced.
Child related policy, act and budget of Bangladesh government:
For the sake of our national development and progress, we should have a proper policy, planning and budgetary allocation to ensure security, protection, development and equal opportunity/scope of all children. There is a specific goal and objectives for children in the National Children Policy 2011 and the 7th Five Year Plan. The government formulated the National Children Act 2013. This reflects the commitment of the government to children. We give thanks to the government for these credible initiatives. But it is very important to determine the required amount of allocation to implement these policy, act, goal and objectives and also need to analyze and assess the impact of allocated money. To do this we have to determine the total amount of allocation for children in the national budget. Under the present budget framework, it is mostly impossible to find out separately how much budgetary allocation is allocated for children. It is necessary to take initiatives in order to understand easily the allocation for children in the national budget. It will show the total amount of allocation, the considerations of priorities and needs and analysis of proper utilisation of allocated money. The government can accept the concept of children budget and declare it in upcoming national budget and also can take initiatives to commission a study to develop the framework of a child budget.
Budget FY17: Our recommendations:
1. Finalise child budget methodology (concept, guidelines, framework) to be piloted in selected ministries in the FY 2016/17 national budget
2.  Invest in a meaningful and practical methodology for determining spending on children: While some public expenditure such as on schools and nutrition is easily identifiable as benefiting children, other types of expenditure such as on construction of roads that connect the household to the school is difficult to be categorised. The methodology for preparing a child budget should therefore set out the underlying assumptions, tools and categories that constitute child spending in order to be most meaningful and user-friendly. Such a methodology could be drawn from the 'Guidelines for Gender and Gender-related Poverty Expenditures'. Importantly, it should also include a scope for a qualitative analysis which measures not just the quantity of public funds invested in children's development, but also the quality and allocative efficiency of such expenditure.
3. Prepare a child-friendly budget report: Work with civil society to design a child-friendly budget report that will help young people understand the spending of the government and build up their economic literacy and understanding of planning and budgeting processes.
4. Transparency and accountability are key to allocations for children: Tk 500 million (50 crore) was allocated for children in the fiscal year 2014-15 for projects for children's welfare. The fund is being managed by MoWCA, and we understand it has been designed as a competitive development fund for NGOs. We would ask that a consultation is held as the preparation for the fiscal year 2015/16 to discuss lessons learned from this process, and to discuss options for 2015/16. For example, should allocation be based on need assessment, should the criteria for allocation be developed and made publicly available? Should part of the budget be made available through the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives to bolster local social development plans for children?
5. It is necessary to declare a roadmap of projects for security, protection and development of street children, orphan children, working children, disabled, ethnic and other children. There could have been a special allocation for skill and human development of these children.
6. There could have been a special budgetary allocation to ensure safe drinking water, sanitation, education and health care for protection and growth of slum children. To ensure health care of slum children, health cards could be issued in order to ensure intensive health care of slum children; a special budgetary allocation is needed to ensure this.
7. In the present system there is no scope of child rights organisations' participation in the budget dialogue. The Ministry of Finance should organise a consultation meeting with child rights development organisations for identification of needs and rights of the children.
8. The education budget should be increased as per children's ratio and needs.
The writer is a child rights activist. Email: [email protected]