The
SaGG Foundation is a girl’s education movement that advocates and pair up girls
with sponsors to support them financially through school.
In
simple terms, ‘child budgeting’ is not about lining up children and
placing cash in each and every child’s
hands. Rather ‘child budgeting’ is about putting national resources - money,
materials, services, facilities, institutions and personnel - to sectors that
address the needs of children. But why do we have to advocate for ‘child
budgeting’?
In the first place, children, just as all
other citizens, have a right to development. But more than that is the fact
that children are the products of society without their consent. No child asked
to be born. Hence those who produce children bear the highest obligation,
morally, legally and politically to take care of those children. It was Nelson
Mandela who noted that the true character of a society is revealed in how it
treats its children. Hence society has an indubitable duty to protect and
develop children which is directly linked to the survival, strength and
security of society itself.
Children have rights like all human beings which must be recognized and respected. Thus, it is the government, parents and adults who are the duty bearers who must fulfill the rights of the child. Child rights essentially relate to the promotion and protection of the welfare and development of the child, as well as ensuring that the child is able to participate in family, societal and national affairs. If the saying that children are the leaders of tomorrow, then this means that the existence and development of society cannot be divorced from children.
All national and international laws and policies have affirmed that children have rights, and their development is primarily a governmental duty. A former UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy once noted that, “A century that began with children having virtually no rights is ending with children having the most powerful legal instrument that not only recognizes but protects their human rights.” Hence the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child noted in Article 4 that,
“States Parties shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present Convention. With regard to economic, social and cultural rights, States Parties shall undertake such measures to the maximum extent of their available resources and, where needed, within the framework of international co-operation.”
Children
in a classroom
A
review of these domestic and international laws would indicate that child
budgeting is a requirement, a and should be used as a means to the fulfillment
of the rights of children and be understood in the context of national budgets.
Many people do not realize that the most important tool of a government is not
the police, army, roads, natural resources, electricity, offices or vehicles,
etc. The most powerful tool for a government is the BUDGET!
The budget is about the income or revenue that
a government makes out of our taxes, rates, service charges, royalties, loans,
grants and donations that it receives from diverse sources and how it plans to
spend that money. It is from the budget that a government funds all its
operations, builds roads and hospitals, pays salaries and all office
operations, and even pays for the travels that the President and members of the
Government undertake. Hence, what is not put in the national budget is not
therefore a priority for the Government. Therefore, if the issue of children is
not topmost in the minds of the people who make the national budget, then it
means that they will prepare a budget that will not allocate money to sectors
that serve children.
Focusing on the 2020 national budget, only 4.3
billion dalasi will be allocated to the key child sectors of education (D2.6B)
and health (D1.5B) out of a total national budget of 21.3 billion dalasi. This
represents only about 20% or one-fifth of the national budget. Is this enough to
build Gambian children to truly become empowered and responsible adults who
could effectively lead and sustain this country today and tomorrow? That is a
question for us all.
For the moment the state of Gambian children
leaves much to be desired even though the country has made gains in universal
primary education and immunization. Recent studies have identified key
challenges in the education sector these include the following:
High
numbers of out-of-school children
Stagnant
gross enrollment rates,
Low
learning outcomes as indicated by national examinations,
Below-target
primary completion rates
Student-textbook
ratios,
Low
teaching quality
Insufficient
resource mobilization.
These
are challenges that directly undermine the growth and development of children
hence threaten the overall growth and development of The Gambia today and
tomorrow. Meantime 7.7 billion dalasi will be spent on debt servicing in 2020
alone! One wonders, where did all of those millions of dollars of loans go to while
the country remains highly indebted and poor?
When we talk about social services, we refer to education, healthcare, water and electricity supply and skills development. These are opportunities and facilities that will enable children to grow and develop themselves with the right mindset, ability and dignity to become true leaders, inventors, creators and producers of today and tomorrow. Child budgeting is therefore an investment in children hence investment in the future and continued growth and overall development of society. Thus a proper child, gender and pro-poor budget is the bedrock for national development.
A girl smiling
Having a child-friendly budget however is not the end of the story. The next step is the monitoring of the budget to ensure that it is properly utilized. All citizens including children should therefore know how to track budgets. This is not merely a question of being an activist; it is a matter for every citizen to become vigilant in order to hold the Government accountable.
The foundation for development and performance is accountability. It is only through accountability that we can know whether resources are being used properly or misused; whether we are making progress or failure; whether public institutions and officials are doing their jobs rightly or wrongly and effectively or are lazy. Without accountability, standards fall, corruption becomes the order of the day and provision of social services collapse and everyone gets miserable because cost of living goes up while people are denied opportunities such as good facilities and quality services that they have already paid through their taxes.
Author: Madi Jobarteh
Madi is a Human Rights defender and Country Representative of Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
