child budget in bangladesh report · bangladesh’ sets out the case for a child budget in...

Child Budget in Bangladesh Report

Summary of the ‘Child Budget in Bangladesh’ Report, June 2014

Introduction

The report initiated by the Centre for Services andInformation on Disability, and supported by Save theChildren in Bangladesh, entitled ‘Child Budgeting inBangladesh’ sets out the case for a child budget inBangladesh. The central premise of the report is that theGovernment should attempt to disaggregate budgetallocations specifically for programmes that benefitchildren from the overall allocations made. This in essenceis the “child budget” or budgeting for children, which is ananalytical tool and reporting mechanism. It allows us toassess and report on how well the government’s policyand programme commitments are supported by financialoutlay of public resources. This is important for two keyreasons: from a prospective outlook, monitoring the inter-and intra-sectoral allocations of the budget over time isnecessary to assess their impact and allocative efficiency.Equally, a child budget or budgeting for children alsoenables us to map gaps retrospectively, and identify wherethere is no legal or programmatic commitment, meaningno financial commitment either.

This summary brief draws out the key features from thereport, which aims to advance the existing dialogue andliterature on budgeting for children in Bangladesh. Thereport is a comprehensive attempt to capture the currentsituation of budgeting for children in Bangladesh. Thisincludes looking at the legal and constitutional basis forsuch an initiative, as well as how this currently sits withinthe budget making process. To that end, the reportproposes two practical approaches that could be used toadvance budgeting for children, namely how to featurechildren more centrally in the budget making process, anda guideline for analyzing budgetary allocations for children.It also provides analysis of the allocations to, and theallocations by, two key child-focused ministries being theMinistry of Women and Children’s Affairs, and the Ministryof Health and Family Welfare.

1 All further factual and statistical references are taken from this report.

Photo: Tanvir Ahmed / Save the Children

2 | Brief

1. Legal and Constitutional Basis ofBudgeting for Children in BangladeshThe report sets out the conceptual basis and legal andconstitutional framework for a child budget in Bangladesh.Economically, politically and ideologically, the state budgetis the most important document expressing thegovernment’s priorities and targets. It is a powerful socialand policy instrument showing how public resources areallocated. As most public expenditure resources comefrom the public purse, citizens – especially the poor andvulnerable, such as children – should benefit fromgovernment services. It is therefore crucial that citizens,child rights organizations and other child rights advocateshave access to information regarding how the state appliespublic funds to address children’s needs.

The report provides a useful and detailed description ofthe budget making process. In sum, the Government ofBangladesh currently requires its line ministries to reporton how their budget allocations impact on women’sadvancement and poverty reduction through a narrativedescription, accompanied by figures, under the ‘Povertyand Gender Reporting’ in the Medium Term BudgetFramework. However, there is no equivalent mandate toreport on how line ministries’ and institution’s budgetsbenefit children and youth, directly or indirectly. As such,it is not possible to ascertain whether children areadequately provided for in the budgets; that is, whetherallocations for children are equitable, sufficient and deliverservices efficiently and effectively, particularly to the mostdeprived and vulnerable children. This lack of budgetaryanalyses from a child-focused perspective can result inunder and/or ineffective spending on children. Lack ofaccess to information on budgets can also undermine thecitizen-state accountability relationship, with a risk ofleading to misuse, leakages and corruption. It is thereforecrucial that citizens and members of the wider communityhave access to information and processes that allow themto hold the state accountable for how it prioritises andspends public funds.

Although still a relatively new concept, the increasingprevalence of child-focused budgeting is evidenced byrelevant initiatives in diverse countries, from Brazil toVietnam to the United States of America. The report setsout the example of India, where the Budget for Childrendisaggregates the overall budget and identifies allocationsfor children’s issues. Through this process, the Union andState budgets in India are recalculated on the basis of childprogrammes. While it is commendable that theGovernment of Bangladesh mandates budgetary reportingon gender and poverty, there is no reporting on budgetingfor children in place yet despite the large demographic ofminors in this country.

As detailed in the report, there are three key legal andpolicy instruments in Bangladesh that set the stage for such

an initiative: the Constitution of the People’s Republic ofBangladesh, the National Children Policy 2011 and the UNConvention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC), whichBangladesh ratified in 1990. Further, Bangladesh has alsoenacted the Children’s Act 2013, ratified relevant ILOConvention, and developed National Plan of Action forChildren (the most recent being 2005-10). Together, thesekey legal and policy instruments provide a strongfoundation for securing child rights in Bangladesh, andfacilitate efforts to advance outcomes for children throughmore fiscal discipline and budgetary scrutiny.

2. Poverty Reduction Efforts and SocialProtection in BangladeshThe report presents the current state of social protectionand poverty reduction initiatives in Bangladesh. In sum,since its independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladeshhas made impressive gains through its innovative poverty-reduction efforts. From a human development perspective,population growth has declined while life expectancy hasincreased; from barely 42 years in 1970 to a high of 68years in 2011. Annual economic growth has remainedsteady at 6% for over a decade. This strong upwardtrajectory of socioeconomic growth is partly due to thesteady growth of GDP in Bangladesh. In 2003-4, GDP wasUSD 40 billion but is projected to reach USD 139 millionby 2015. Further, total revenue has increased as well astotal expenditure and total financing including grants. Thisachievement is accompanied by better revenue collection,which increased from 11.76% to 14.62% of GDP during thelast decade. Equally, during this time, expenditure also rosefrom 15.54% to 18.72% of GDP. However, while therevenue budget has increased from 8.39% to 11.31% overthe past ten years, the development budget has decreasedfrom 7.19% to 6.08% of GDP. The report also examinesallocations to the seven major social sector ministries as aproportion of total revenue, total expenditure and GDPgrowth over the same period of time. It comments also onallocations to the large number of diverse social protectionprograms.

As mentioned before, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairsare not only the two ministries exclusively contributing to child rights. The effort to ensure the delivery of

responsibilities to children is wide ranging and about a dozen of other ministries/divisions and agencies are involvedfor the same purpose. The size of such allocations is substantial. A summary of social safety net programs is given inTable 14. These data sets are prepared by the government on two dimensions namely social protection and socialempowerment. Social protection and social empowerment both are generally identifiable cash or kind to certain

group of people, which assists poor people to cope with their individual poverty, or as a group with a certain patternof vulnerability. However, these two groups are difficult to fully define even though these social sectors in general, and

poor people in particular, are benefited by such allocations.










3 | Brief

3. Analysis of Ministry of Women andChildren’s Affairs Budgetary AllocationsThe report provides an interesting and useful analysis ofthe Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MoWCA)allocations, as it is the key ministry officially mandated tofocus on children’s rights issues, alongside women’s issuesand public health issues. Perhaps more than any otherMinistry, MoWCA is responsible for addressing thewellbeing of children, who constitute just under half of thetotal Bangladeshi population. However, from a grossallocation point of view, this ministry does not enjoy alarge share of total government expenditure.

In 2001-2, the report states that the MoWCA budget was0.12% of GDP which has increased to 0.03% in 2013-14.This is four times higher over a span of 13 years. It isestimated that the ministry has a share of 0.83% of totalrevenue for the ongoing fiscal year. In 2013-14, theministry was allocated 1.08% of total non-developmentexpenditure, which is more than double its allocation in2001-02. Allocations to the ministry prior to 2002-03period were modest, and grew incrementally until 2008-09. In terms of total development expenditure, theministry is expected to spend 2.01%, which has increasedfrom 0.58% in 2001-02. Therefore, the share of totaldevelopment and revenue expenditure for this ministry is0.65% in 2013-14 compared to 0.24% in 2001-02.

The report observes that within the MoWCA budget, onlya small proportion of the allocation is clearly identifiable asspending for children. The size of the budget allocation forchildren is small even for a relatively lightly allocatedMinistry such as MoWCA. The report finds that out of thetotal allocations to this Ministry, only 10% is clearlyidentifiable as targeting children for 2013-14. Another 4%is partially focused on children, as they are the indirectbeneficiary of allocations targeting mothers. This suggeststhat 86% of allocations within the MoWCA budget cannotbe said definitively to either directly or indirectly benefitchildren.

As MoWCA is the main duty bearer in the fulfillment ofchildren’s rights, greater budget transparency will enableits resource allocation to be better examined in order todetermine whether child-focused policies and programmesare adequately supported. Monitoring public spending andtracking the impact and efficiency of such spending by keychild-related ministries such as MoWCA is an importantelement – arguably the first step – in ensuring adequateinvestment in the achievement of children’s rights.

4. Analysis of Ministry of Health andFamily Welfare Budgetary AllocationsThe report also analyses the Ministry of Health and FamilyWelfare (MHFW), as it is another ministry mandated tofocus on children’s affairs, and is responsible for activitiesthat directly benefit children, such asimmunization/vaccination and nutrition. The MHFW was

allocated 5.45% of total revenue to be collected in 2013-14. This represents a reduction in allocation since 2001-02,when the share it received was 8.95% of total revenue.Out of this allocation, the ministry is expected to spend4.27% of total development and non developmentallocations of the current fiscal year, which is less than in1997-98, when it was 7.26% of total public spending. Thus,the share of GDP which the MHFW receives has actuallydecreased from 0.94% to 0.80% since 1997-98.

Equally, the report finds that within MHFW allocation,resources targeting children explicitly were 0.63% in2013/14. The size of the allocation for nutrition, whichtargets children directly, was 0.95% for 2013/14. Theallocation targeting both mothers and children (directly orindirectly) amounted to 6.57%. Therefore, the totalallocation within the MHFW budget that can be said tobenefit children was only for 8.15% for 2013/14.

There is no doubt that a significant proportion of theallocation to MHFW as a whole is focused on children.However, MHFW also suffers from the problem of underutilization of resources. For example, in the fiscal year2008-09, the ministry could only implement 84% of itsresourced activities. This situation improved in 2013-14,when the ministry could implement 92% of its resourcedactivities, leaving an 8% shortfall. Historically, it is commonthat allocation to this ministry is rarely fully utilized andthis has wide-ranging repercussions on children.

Photo: Save the Children

4 | Brief

5. Designing and Implementing a MoreChild-Focused BudgetThe report underlines that the Constitution mandates thatchildren may be specially provided for, which presents anopportunity to focus and feature children more in thebudget-making process. The report proposes a six-stepprocess as summarized below.

Step One: Conduct a Children’s Needs AssessmentIn this step, the current needs of children and youth areascertained through assessing the legal frameworks,various public sector plans and global initiatives such as theMillennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as publicconsultation, including with civil society, researchers andadvocates. Moreover, the views of children aremeaningfully included as a key step in determining theirneeds. Lastly, this step should involve a cost assessment inorder to determine the financial inputs required to achievethe set objectives.

Step Two: Advocate Greater Allocation for ChildrenThe resource needs identified in the child needsassessment are included as a ministry or agency developsand identifies possible sources of financing (includingconsultation with the Finance Division, Economic RelationsDivision, Planning Commission and various implementingand development partners). Following the relevant budgetcircular procedures in formulating its budget, ministriesshould include advocating for its resource needs inaccordance with the children’s needs assessment.

Step Three: Ensure That Allocation Meets NeedAs with any ministry, the child-related ministries, especiallyMoWCA and MHFW, have competing demands whichrequire their budgets to finely balance priorities andconflicting interests. Ministries should ensure that theyadvocate for adequate allocation within the available fiscalspace so that the assessed needs of children are adequatelymet.

Step Four: Assess Utilisation against AllocationBudget-implementing ministries must ensure that approvedallocations are fully utilized. Ministries are rewarded fortheir utilization efficiency. Operationalising allocatedresources however can be challenging, and failure to do sofully may impact the allocation granted to anunderperforming ministry or division in the following fiscalyear. This in turn may impact on child-related programmesand projects covered by the relevant ministry. To minimizethis, responsible ministries could ensure adequatepreparation and approval of necessary child relatedprograms as part of technical and draft project proposals,develop stronger capacities around child rights, andspecifically monitor the alignment of allocation andutilization of spending for children.

Step Five: Monitoring and Evaluation of Input and OutputMonitoring is essential to ensure that decision makers canreadily access the extent to which objectives are beingachieved, and what changes need to be made to reachthese. There are a number of budgetary rules andregulations, such as the PMBM Act 2009, which requireministries, divisions and other institutions to prepare and

submit Budget Implementation Plans on a quarterly basis.Such financial monitoring is an important element of theoverall monitoring and evaluation process, however otherinitiatives to enhance social accountability, such as socialaudits, monitoring surveys, and a special budgeting forchildren monitoring unit, could also be established and/orbetter utilized.

Step Six: Assess OutcomesThe success of the budgeting process and activities is bestmeasured by determining the extent to which outcomesare reached. Outcomes are the value additions in the livesof beneficiaries, however measuring them can be a difficultprocess. Both strategic and management level indicatorsare required, and these should be well-focused and easy tounderstand use. Further, outcomes should relate clearly toan institution’s strategic goals and objectives, as set out inits plans. One way to achieve this is to design an outcomematrix, which matches each set of the objectives of thechild budget, and whereby performance is measured bysetting Key Performance Indicators.


5 | Brief

6. A Guideline for Analysing the ChildBudget in BangladeshThe report sets out a further five-step process foranalyzing the current state of budgetary allocations forchildren at any given time.

Step One: Selection of MinistryThere are fifty-nine Ministries, Divisions and otherinstitutions within the administration of the Governmentof Bangladesh. Each is mandated with specific objectivesand activities, but there are some which are more engagedwith children’s issues directly.

Step Two: Collect Detailed DataAfter selecting a Ministry, it is necessary to collect detaileddata regarding its budgetary allocations. Information can becollated according to development expenditure, whichrelates to projects and programs that are time-bound;non-development expenditure, which relates to recurringexpenses such as salaries, and combined expenditure.

Step Three: Processing DataAfter the data has been collected, it can be processed bycategorizing the various allocations according to, forexample, salaries, allowances, grants in aid, pensions andgratuities, block allocations and so on. Importantly,categorizing the allocations as follows may help todetermine those that are child-focused: Where the expenditure head clearly indicates that it is

made directly for children’s benefit, the particularactivity should be classified as “Fully Identifiable” or“Child Explicitly”

Where the expenditure head primarily mentions themother, the particular activity should be classified as“Partially Identifiable”, or “Child Plus MotherExplicitly”, as it follows that allocations targetingmothers would also benefit their children

In the case of expenditure that is specific, and clearlytargets children, such as “Nutrition” within the MHFPbudget, it is acceptable to use this as a separateclassification

Other expenditure should be classified as “notidentifiable”, however it should be noted that suchexpenditure may indirectly or directly benefit children

Step Four: Macro Analysis of AllocationsIn order to assess the total extent of resources allocatedfor children, it is necessary to consider the totalallocations for children. This can framed in the followingways: Total allocations for children by one ministry or many

of the ministries vis-à-vis total resources allocated in afiscal year;

Total allocations for children relative to total GDP; Total allocations for children relative to total

allocations for Defense, Law and Justice, Home Affairsand so on; and

Total allocations for children relative to tax revenue,total revenue and total financing in a fiscal year.

Step Five: Implementation AnalysisLastly, it is important to monitor and assess whetherallocations to and within ministries and agencies areutilized, as simply receiving allocations is not enough. Todo this, it is important to determine the differencebetween the budget figure and revised budget value, aswell as the difference between the budget figure and actualexpenditure value.

Phases in Designing Child Focused Budget

Photo: Save the Children

6 | Brief

Conclusion: Next StepsThe report ‘Child Budgeting in Bangladesh’ is acomprehensive attempt to capture the current situation ofbudgeting for children in Bangladesh. Drawing from thereport, the following key recommendations are proposed:

Ensure that the new budget classification system ismore transparent on child spending: Many differentministries and agencies make and implement policy onissues that concern the rights and interests of children,but it is difficult to determine the total allocation forchild spending from the existing budget classificationsystem. The Government of Bangladesh is currently inthe process of finalizing and implementing a new chartof accounts which is more disaggregated than thecurrent coding system. The new system shouldtherefore be more transparent on child spending.

Invest in a meaningful and practical methodology fordetermining spending on children: While some publicexpenditure such as on schools and nutrition is easilyidentifiable as benefiting children, other types ofexpenditure such as on construction of roads thatconnect the household to the school is not asstraightforward to break down and categorise. Themethodology for preparing a child budget shouldtherefore set out the underlying assumptions, tools andcategories that constitute child spending in order to bemost meaningful and user-friendly. Such a methodologycould be drawn from the ‘Guidelines for Gender andGender-related Poverty Expenditures’. Importantly, itshould also include scope for a qualitative analysiswhich measures not just the quantity of public fundsinvested in children’s development, but also the qualityand allocative efficiency of such expenditure.

Strengthen public participation in the budgetpreparation process: The report finds that in manycountries, civil society organizations, non-governmentalorganizations, researchers and advocates are consultedand play a role in the budget-making process. Astarting point for such an approach in relation to theintroduction of child budgeting in 2015/16 could be forthe Government to hold a “tagging workshop”, whichwould draw together different voices from thecommunity to analyse and disaggregate currentspending on children in the national budget. Thisworkshop could also build participation into the designof the underlying assumptions, tools and categoriesthat constitute child spending.

Protect public funds allocated for investment inchildren from macroeconomic shocks: The reportobserves that if and when shocks occur, the socialsectors are among the first and most adverselyimpacted. Therefore, some form of benchmarking andring-fencing around allocations for child spending couldbe maintained, which should be underpinned by policyand legislative requirements.

Continue to engage and support key policymakers andparliamentarians: The report states that ownershipand buy-in from the government are arguably the mostimportant drivers in realizing this initiative. In thisrespect, it is very encouraging that the HonourableMinister of Finance recently committed toimplementing a child budget in FY 2015/16. As thereport suggests, if political and social commitment forfocusing children in the budget-making process andprioritizing their needs in the planning and resourceallocation process is strengthened, budgeting forchildren can become a reality which will progress therights and wellbeing of all children in Bangladesh.

Save the Children, BangladeshHouse CWN (A) 35, Road 43, Gulshan 2Dhaka – 1212BangladeshBangladesh.savethechildren.net

Centre for Services and Information onDisability (CSID)House 676, Flat 1A, Road 13Baitul Aman Housing SocietyAdabor, Dhaka – 1207www.csid-bd.com


child budget in bangladesh report · bangladesh’ sets out the case for a child budget in...

Documents