Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
September 2003
ISBN: 1-919798-51-X
Table of contents
The purpose of this Guide
5.4 Assessing the prospects for child poverty to be reduced through markets 62
Chapter 6: Analysing programme existence and design
• The guide aims to assist people who plan to conduct their own research on
government’s budgeting for children. For these target readers, the handbook offers
research support and practical guidance on how to use child budget analysis to
generate information that can be used to advance child rights.
• The guide is also intended as an information resource for child rights activists to use
budget information to reinforce their advocacy work. For these target readers, the
handbook provides insights into the different types of information that can be
generated through child budget analysis.
The guide thus facilitates and encourages meaningful interaction and strategic alignment
between the work of budget analysts and child rights activists in the NGO sector.
The book has been compiled by the Childrens Budget Unit (CBU), a project within the
Budget Information Service (BIS) at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa
(Idasa)1. The need for such a booklet is motivated by the following factors:
• The growing interest within the NGO and donor community in applied budget work
(see Shapiro 2002: 7).
• Specific requests made to the CBU for information on how to conduct child budget
analysis in South Africa and elsewhere.
1
Idasa is a public interest not-for-profit organisation i
promoting democracy and advocating for social justice in South
Africa and elsewhere.
About the Childrens Budget Unit (CBU)
The CBU was established in 1995 with the objective of conducting research and
disseminating information on government’s budgeting for children in South Africa. The
birth of the CBU came at a time of dramatic transformation in the political landscape of
the country. South Africa’s first democratic government, elected in April 1994, inherited a
legacy of extensive and deep poverty - including child poverty. At the time, it was
estimated that at the very least 60 percent of South African children were income poor.
During the first few years of democratic rule, the new government took a number of
significant steps that reflected a strong commitment to reducing child poverty and
advancing socio-economic rights. These included (amongst others):
• Government’s ratification (in June 1995) of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC);
• Certification of the new Constitution (in June 1996), which includes a broad range of
civil, political, socio-economic and cultural rights, for everyone and specifically for
children; and
In the mid 1990s, South Africa’s fledgling democracy was further strengthened by an
active NGO sector and many independent agencies conducting research and advocacy
work aimed at promoting socio-economic rights, pro-poor policies and legislation.
However, no research was then being undertaken on government’s budgeting for children
and how it could be improved. The CBU was established with a view to filling this
budget information gap.
Throughout this guide, examples are drawn from the work of the CBU to explain useful
research procedures and budget analysis methods. The handbook thus provides a
practical illustration of the kinds of research conducted by the unit. By way of
introduction, the CBU’s main research activities can broadly be summarised as follows:
ii
• Describing the child poverty situation and highlighting where it seems as if
government may be violating its obligations to deliver child rights.
• Describing the nature of the legal obligations on the state and particularly on
government (the executive) to deliver child rights,
with the focus on budget obligations and child socio-
economic rights.
• Identifying what programmes government has put in The work of the CBU has evolved over time.
place to deliver child rights and analysing the design However, its objectives, as expressed in its
of these programmes against the legal obligations to most recent mission statement, have
deliver child rights.
essentially remained the same. The mission
• Identifying and recording government budget of the CBU today is:
allocations to the key programmes in place to deliver “to contribute to child rights
child rights, relative to the total amount made realisation and child poverty reduction by
available for spending in the budget. conducting research, training and
information dissemination on government’s
• Analysing the implementation of the key programmes
government has put in place to deliver child rights budget allocations and service delivery in
(focusing on spending of budgets, the speed of roll- relation to legal obligations”.
out of services, discrimination in access and service
delivery problems).
iii
Figure 1 below helps to clarify the approach the CBU adopts in its research. It illustrates
the link between ‘paper rights’ and the process of bringing these rights to fruition for
children. The figure outlines how the rights that are given to children on paper in the
form of legal documents - such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and
constitutions – need to be translated into reality through government action.
Figure 1: Realising child rights: the link between rights on paper and
government action
Children are given a holistic range of rights in legal documents such as:
• the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
• the constitutions of various countries
To help translate the paper rights into actual rights, governments must take
measures to:
• Reform the legal framework in a country so that it is congruent with child
rights treaties, ensuring that child rights are respected, protected and
fulfilled and that child rights laws are enforced.
• Assist the private sector to create jobs (and hence income) for parents in
low-income households (for example through fiscal, monetary, trade and
industrial policy).
• Develop programmes for the delivery of services that can fulfil child rights
to all children that need them, ensuring that there is non-discrimination in
programme design and the plan is to roll out services speedily.
• Allocate resources to child rights programmes so that they can be
implemented and to the enforcement of child rights laws.
• Implement child rights programmes in a way that ensures that budget
allocations, infrastructure and administrative capacity bring about the
rapid roll-out of services that can give effect to the rights for all children
in need. This includes spending budgets allocated to the programmes and
using financial and non-financial resources to deliver quality services,
quickly, to all children in need.
iv
In many developing countries where child poverty is extensive, markets are doing little to
help deliver socio-economic rights. By and large, the private sector is not generating
many job opportunities for poor people. In such circumstances, it is particularly vital for
government intervention to deliver socio-economic rights via the design and effective
implementation of programmes that deliver basic services.
As indicated above, the scope of the CBU’s budget monitoring covers not only the
identification of budget allocations to programmes designed to give effect to child rights.
It also analyses the design of the programmes that government has put in place to deliver
child rights, and the implementation of these programmes.2 This dual focus is necessary
because the realisation of child rights in South Africa is as dependant on the South
African government designing and effectively implementing programmes that facilitate
rapid roll-out of services to all children in need, as it is on budget allocations to such
programmes.
Against this background, this guide offers assistance on how to go about analysing not
only government’s budget allocations to child rights programmes, but also how to analyse
the design and implementation of such programmes.
Part I lays a foundation for the rest of the guide by clarifying some key concepts and
providing background information on the budget and child rights. It presents a starting
point of essential basics that anyone should be familiar with before embarking on a
budget study that aims to advance child rights.
• Chapter one gives a brief overview of basic budget concepts, including the budget
cycle and the importance of budget monitoring.
2
Due to capacity constraints, the CBU’s budget work from a child rights perspective currently v
excludes the analysis of legislation. A number of other research organisations in South Africa
have a specific focus on holding government accountable for ensuring that South African law is
congruent with the legal child rights framework. These include the Community Law Centre at the
University of the Western Cape and Children’s Rights Institute at the University of Cape Town.
• Chapter two offers an introduction to the child rights terrain and outlines the
obligations on states to deliver these rights. It draws attention to the manner in which
states are required to use their budgets to advance child rights.
Part II of the guide is intended to support the conceptualisation and planning phase of a
child budget study. It offers practical suggestions on how to go about developing a
coherent and detailed research framework.
• Chapter three provides guidelines for defining the objective and scope of the study, as
well as the target audience for which the research findings are intended.
• Chapter four puts forward a five-step process for identifying and selecting the
research questions for a budget study that aims to advance child rights. The chapter
concludes with a summary of twelve key questions to ask in relation to government’s
programme conceptualisation, budget allocations and programme implementation
when conducting budget analysis from a child rights perspective. These questions
should be seen as a guide rather than a prescription, on the understanding that the
exact set of research questions will differ from country to country and study to study.
Part III of the guide explains and illustrates the basic research methods typically used in
studies aimed at monitoring budgets in a way that help to advance child rights. For
readers that aim to conduct their own child budget analysis, it provides an overview of
basic budget and research skills that will assist them in answering most of the research
questions identified in part two of the guide:
• Chapter five highlights the value of developing a profile of child poverty as part of a
child budget research study. It outlines various approaches to child poverty profiling
and examines how to tackle these in practice. The chapter also includes guidelines to
help assess the prospects for child poverty to be reduced via growth in the market
economy.
vi
• Chapter six offers pointers on how to begin the process of analysing the programmes
that government has set in place to give effect to a particular child right. It focuses on
the identification of such programmes and a method for examining and describing
their design.
• Chapter seven tackles the nuts and bolts of analysing budget allocations to a child
rights programme. It explains a range of basic budget analysis skills and illustrates
how these can be applied to specific programmes set in place to advance child rights.
• Chapter eight outlines how a research team can go about analysing budget
implementation and service delivery in relation to a child rights programme. This
chapter includes practical guidelines for monitoring government’s performance in
translating its budget allocations into service delivery for children.
Readers can access more information on the key themes and topics of the guide by
consulting the resource lists that appear at the end of each part (and in some cases at the
end of individual chapters).
Appendix I presents three diverse examples of CBU research studies that monitor
government programmes, budgeting and service provision for children. While they differ
in significant respects, the examples are united by the common aim of providing
information that can be used as a tool to advance child rights. The diversity of the
examples illustrates that there are many disparate kinds of research studies that can be
classified as projects that monitor budgets for children in order to advance child rights.
vii
Part 1
Introduction to the budget
and child rights
(Fozzard, 2001:21-22).
Chapter one:
The budget 1 Chapter one: The Budget
includes value judgements about which services, and whose interests, are most important. The
budget is clearly a political and contestable document.
Defining the budget solely as the document that outlines government’s expenditure and revenue
proposals misses the important point that the budget is a manifestation (or product) of a long and
intricate budget decision-making process and a country’s system for managing and assessing its
spending and tax policies.
Stage 1 Budget formulation The budget plan is put together by the executive branch of
government.
Stage 2 Budget enactment The budget plan may be debated, altered, and approved by the
legislative branch of government
Stage 3 Budget execution The policies of the budget are carried out by the government.
Stage 4 Budget auditing The actual expenditures of the budget are accounted for and
assessment assessed for effectiveness.
2
Chapter one: The Budget
Budget formulation
This initial stage in the formulation of the budget occurs almost exclusively within the executive
branch of government. Typically, one office – usually the budget office in the ministry of finance –
co-ordinates and manages the formulation of the budget, requesting information from individual
departments. It is also likely to propose trade-offs necessary to fit competing government priorities
into pre-determined budget expenditure totals, based on fiscal policy targets2 and growth
projections. This process can take a few weeks to several months, largely depending on the extent to
which departments are involved and their views are taken into account.
The broad contours of the budget are determined in part by government’s projections of key fiscal
and other parameters – such as economic growth, inflation, or demographic changes – which will
influence overall revenues and expenditures. Yet the budget formulation process is also influenced
by government spending priorities, policy goals and legislative requirements.
In general, budgets are not built from the ground up every year. Instead, new budgets tend to use the
budget most recently adopted into law as a starting point (baseline). This does not mean that all
budget changes from baselines are incremental. Especially when new policies or laws are
introduced and priorities change, there will be substantial changes in budgets.
Many countries have adopted a three-year rolling budget system, otherwise known as the Medium
Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). The MTEF is a multi-year approach to budgeting that
aims to strengthen the links between planning, policy-making and budgets. Under this system, the
formulation stage of the budget involves deciding on expenditures and revenues not only for the up-
coming financial year, but also on estimates for the two subsequent financial years.
One of the intended outcomes of conducting budget analysis for children is to help ensure that the
allocation of funds to programmes designed to give effect to child rights (particularly basic child
socio-economic rights) is given high priority in the formulation stage of the budget. For most
countries, the international human rights framework and domestic legislation demands that this be
the case. This is because international treaties and domestic laws (in some countries, their
constitutions) place an obligation on states to prioritise resource allocations for the provision of
those basic services that are required to deliver rights. However, in decision-making around the
Budget enactment
During the second stage of the budget cycle, the executive’s budget is discussed in the legislature and
enacted into law. The second stage of the budget cycle begins when the executive formally proposes the
budget to the legislature. The legislature then discusses the budget, a process that may include public
hearings and votes by legislative committees. The process ends when the budget is adopted by the
legislature, either intact or with amendments. The budget can, in some countries, be rejected by the
legislature and be replaced by the legislature’s own proposal, but this is not usually the case.
It is typically during the budget enactment stage that public attention on the budget is greatest and
information about the budget is most broadly disseminated and read.
At this time of the year, the media is likely to have particular interest in receiving budget analyses,
including research findings on government’s budgeting for children.
Budget execution
The third stage in the budget cycle involves the implementation of the budget and monitoring of
spending. Governments differ widely in how they regulate and monitor spending to ensure adherence to
budgets. In some cases, the treasury (or finance ministry) exercises strong central control over spending,
reviewing allocations to departments and approving major expenditures. Where departments are more
independent, treasuries will monitor expenditures by requiring, for instance, regular reporting by each
department on its spending.
In practice, budgets are not always implemented in the exact form in which they were approved. For
example, funding levels in the budget may not be adhered to or authorised funds may not be spent for the
intended purpose. These deviations can be acceptable when they flow from conscious policy decisions or
a reaction to changing economic conditions. However, deviations that cannot be justified in relation to
sound policy shifts are cause for concern. Such deviations may result from outright abuse by the executive,
but also often reflect a poor budget system and a lack of administrative capacity in programmes.
4
Chapter one: The Budget
Typical problems that lead to deviations between the budget plan and implementation include:
• Poor costing of policy and programmes (sometimes due to lack of data but also simply due to lack of
costing capacity);
In most countries, the executive (led by the finance ministry) issues regular public reports on the status
of expenditure during the year in different programmes and sectors.
As explained in the introduction, budget analysis for children does not only involve asking and
answering questions about how much has been allocated to children’s programmes and whether it is
enough (questions related to the first two stages of the budget cycle). It also involves analysing the
implementation of child budget allocations and programmes. This aspect of child budget work asks
whether there are deviations between budget allocations to child programmes and actual expenditure
on these programmes. It also examines whether resources are being used in a way that ensures that
quality services are being rolled out rapidly to all children in need (particularly the most vulnerable).
To understand budget assessment, it is useful to be aware of the terms: budget inputs, budget outputs
and budget outcomes. Budget inputs are the resources assigned to a budget. Budget outputs refer to
5
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
the services produced by budget inputs. Budget outcomes refer to the change in the environment or
quality of life that the service is supposed to bring about. (See also Appendix II).
During the assessment process, it is desirable to consider deviations between planned inputs (budget
allocations) and actual inputs and between planned outputs (services) and actual outputs. Some
countries have moved even further in budget evaluation, to also consider deviations between
planned and actual budget outcomes (Buhler, 2002). It is very difficult to rigorously link budget
inputs, budget outputs and budget outcomes and hence to evaluate budgets by considering all three
levels (Ibid).
• A legal framework to define institutional roles and responsibilities, including checks and
balances (accountability).
• Accurate and timely information and projections (this depends on developing good
demographic statistics and the capacity to effectively cost implementation of policies).
• A process that is transparent, allows for meaningful participation by the legislature and civil
society and builds performance monitoring into the budget system.
A legal framework
An appropriate legal framework helps to ensure that adequate checks and balances have been
established for the budget system. For example, the legal framework should outline the role of the
legislature and of independent auditing institutions in guarding against the total dominance and
potential abuse of the budget system by the executive. In some countries, like in South Africa, the
Constitutional Court and independent bodies such as the Human Rights Commission, are also
6
Chapter one: The Budget
A legal framework that clarifies the roles and responsibilities of the executive and legislative
branches in the budget system and of independent institutions is essential to establishing
accountability. The clarification of roles and responsibilities should extend to the different levels of
government, explaining which tier is responsible for delivering which public services, and which
revenues can be raised by different tiers.
A legal framework should also establish the rules and regulations that guide the budget decision-
making process and the management of government revenue and public expenditure. Even simple
rules can be important, such as setting the key dates in the budget process and defining the reporting
obligations of the executive. The rules may also dictate the scope of the budget or spell out the
complex procedures surrounding the procurement of goods and services by the public sector. Legal
frameworks in some countries include a significant number of procedural details, while others give
more flexibility to government managers. Even in the latter case, the legal framework will include a
minimum set of requirements to ensure that managers can be assessed and the public interest
protected.
A comprehensive budget
Ideally, the budget should capture all of the intended financial transactions of government: the total
revenues to be collected, funds to be expended, debts to be repaid, as well as new and old liabilities
to be incurred. The full picture of a government’s financial status cannot be captured if some
programmes, agencies or commitments are ‘off budget’. In most low-income countries, where
donor money makes up a large part of the total funds available for spending on public services, it is
important for (revenue and expenditure) information on these funds to be included in the
government budget.
Over the recent past, the definition of a comprehensive budget has been expanded to include the
7
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
requirement of providing budget data over several years. To be comprehensive, budgets should – at
the minimum – include information on estimated levels of expenditure and revenues in the year
immediately preceding the budget year as well as the actual levels for the year or two prior to this.
The presentation of actual expenditure and revenue levels provides an important benchmark for
assessing the budget proposals for the up-coming financial year. It is also important to compare the
actual and budgeted expenditure over the last couple of years. To be really comprehensive in terms
of yearly coverage, the budget should also – in line with the MTEF framework – include
projections of spending, revenue and macro-economic outcomes for the two years following the
upcoming financial year.
It is crucial that proposed allocations are based on a sound costing of programme implementation.
Costing programme implementation requires knowledge about the administrative capacity of
government to implement key policies and programmes (and how quickly it can be built), and the
numbers of people eligible for services produced by the programme. Good information about the
8
Chapter one: The Budget
expected demand for services is needed in order to develop sound baseline budgets. This highlights
how important it is to build appropriate systems for recording demographic data in order to
establish a sound budget system. This is a key challenge in many developing countries, including
South Africa.
Transparency rests on the availability of information and also on its usefulness to public debate and
the formulation of policy. There is an important connection between transparency and participation:
one aim of transparency is to promote greater participation. Many of the objectives of transparency
– such as holding government accountable, or increasing support for government decisions, or
improving efficiency in government programmes and projects – cannot be fully realised without
complementary participation by legislatures and civil society. For example, access to information
may allow legislatures to monitor executive decisions and performance, but without the opportunity
to act on the information they receive, their oversight will be ineffective and there will be no real
incentives to correct performance.
To develop and sustain a sound budget system, a country requires the participation of government,
the auditor general (or some independent auditing agency), parliament, civil society and the
electorate.
9
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
• Aggregate fiscal discipline means that total expenditure should reflect explicit decisions that are in
line with sustainable growth-oriented economic and fiscal policy, and not merely demands on
spending from different actors.
• Allocative efficiency means that the allocation of resources, and consequently expenditures,
should be based on explicit priorities that reflect society’s choices and (presumably anticipated)
programme effectiveness.
• Operational efficiency means that the delivery of public goods and services should be cost efficient
and of high quality.
The PEM approach therefore highlights the importance of considering three levels when
government officials allocate and use resources – and when researchers evaluate government
budgeting. These are illustrated in Figure 2.
Aggregate level of spending Budgets should be planned and implemented in such a way
HOW MUCH IS SPENT? that the levels of spending and taxing are affordable.
In practice, it is very difficult for politicians, budget planners and society as a whole to ensure that
resources are allocated in line with the principles outlined above. This is because:
• Unforeseen economic shocks can undermine revenue collection and hence the ability to adhere
to the fiscal prudence principle.
• Individuals in society have diverse needs and preferences, making it virtually impossible for
government to identify what should, in an ideal world, be priorities for the allocation of public
resources.
• Politicians, driven by party interests, have their own ideas about what should be prioritised and
often do not consult adequately with their electorates.
• It is very difficult to conduct the cost-benefit analysis necessary to show the relative
effectiveness of different programmes in realising a particular objective once it has been
selected.4
• Allocation of resources in line with stated priorities (as reflected in political campaigns and
legal documents) is often undermined by politicians playing political games and acting in their
own interests.
• Fiscal discipline and the efficient allocation of resources are undermined by a lack of capacity to
predict the future performance of key economic variables (such as inflation and economic
growth) and the relative efficiency of different programmes (expenditure priorities).
• Inability to predict key macroeconomic variables is, in part, simply the result of inherent
uncertainty regarding the future of the national and international economies. However, it is
also due to lack of capacity amongst civil servants tasked with making the predictions.
• Poor predictions of the relative efficiency of different programmes usually result from a lack of
proper costing of programmes, a lack of technical costing and modelling capacity and poor
quality data.
• During the enactment stage many countries, legislatures – and sometimes NGOs – do not have
the political will (or power), research capacity and time to play a meaningful oversight role by
reviewing the budget.
• Common problems usually include a poor flow of information about what funds are to be spent on.
• Transfers to the department responsible for spending the funds may be unacceptably slow.
• Service providers often lack the administrative capacity and infrastructure to effectively
implement programmes.
12
Chapter one: The Budget
• A lack of independence on the part of auditors undermines the transparency and accountability
of the auditing process.
• Budget assessment may be too narrow in its focus (for example, consideration of inputs but not
outputs and outcomes).
• A team tasked with budget assessment may itself lack the evaluation capacity to undertake this
task effectively.
13
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
Hickey, A and Van Zyl, A. 2002. 2002 South African Budget Guide and
Dictionary. Cape Town: Idasa.
14
Chapter two:
Child rights Chapter two: Child rights
the Rights of the Child (CRC). The CRC was developed by the United Nations in the late 1980s to
give children all over the world a holistic set of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.
It was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in November 1989 and entered into
force shortly thereafter. The CRC has thus far been ratified by all countries in the world except the
United States of America and Somalia.
The general and child-specific rights given to children at the global level via the United Nations
treaties are complemented in most countries by the ratification of regional human rights treaties. In
a few countries, they are also supplemented by the inclusion of child rights in the Constitution. For
example, in South Africa, the relevant international child rights legal framework is the ICCPR and
the CRC (South Africa has signed but not yet ratified the ICESCR). At the regional level, the
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child (AC) also applies to South African
children.3 In addition, the South African Constitution also gives children particular legal rights
(civil, political, economic, social and cultural). The Constitution’s Bill of Rights includes rights
given in general to everyone, as well as child-specific rights.
There are different categories of child rights: civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.
These different categories of child rights are inter-dependant: unless all the rights are ultimately
realised, it will be impossible to ensure that children can truly live with dignity and be free from
both want and fear.
• the child’s right to be heard in any judicial and/or administrative proceedings affecting the
child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body – Article 12(1).
3
This is a child specific human rights treaty developed by
the erstwhile Organisation of African Unity (OAU). It was
16 adopted by the OAU in 1990. South Africa signed the
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African
Child (AC) in January 2000.
Chapter two: Child rights
• the child’s right to benefit from social security (social assistance) – Article 26
• the child’s right to enjoy his or her own culture, practice his or her own religion or use his or her
own language – Article 30.
tangible benefits in order for them to become meaningful. When cited in Shultz, 2002:20).
thinking about the role-players involved in this process, it is useful to
make a distinction between those that are explicitly given obligations “All human rights are tools for
in the international human rights instruments and domestic laws, and empowerment and mobilization.
those that are not. Only through knowing our socio-
economic rights, and organising to
In most of the relevant treaties like the CRC, and in constitutions,
two role-players are explicitly given obligations to advance child defend and advance these rights, will
rights. These are states (referred to as ‘State Parties’ in the CRC) and they become more than `paper
parents.4 The pace at which child rights are realised in a country is rights’.” (Liebenberg and Pillay, 2000:17).
indeed heavily dependant on the actions of parents and the state.
4
In Article 4, the CRC also implicitly refers to obligations
of the international community by suggesting that it may be
necessary in some cases for the developing countries to draw 17
on international assistance for realisation of child socio-
economic rights.
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
However, the international human rights treaties, including the CRC, do not say anything about the
relative role of the different organs of state - the executive (government), parliament and the
judiciary - in fulfilling state party obligations. Constitutions (for example, the South African
Constitution) usually set out more explicitly how the various components of the state are required to
give effect to child rights. Broadly speaking, it can be argued that government, in the form of the
executive, is the pivotal player.
A number of other roleplayers make important contributions in the child rights arena, although they
are not explictly given the obligation to do so. These players can, for example, advance child rights
by monitoring the actions of those that do have explicit obligations, advocating for child rights and
enforcing child rights laws. The table below summarises how these different role players help to
advance child rights.
Human rights commissions By monitoring the measures governments undertake to realise child
rights
18
Chapter two: Child rights
The international financial By making loans to governments in state parties and/or by giving aid
community that finances specific child rights programmes and offering technical
support
United Nations Committee on the By overseeing the implementation of the CRC5 , including through
Rights of the Child (the UN accepting State and NGO reports on implementation of child rights
supervisory body for the CRC) obligations
When conducting budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights, the focus is on monitoring the
extent to which one organ of the state, namely government, is fulfilling its responsibilities in relation
to these rights. The section below provides an overview of States Parties’ obligations, focusing on
governments’ responsibilities to deliver child rights.
5
See section 2.5 for more information on the monitoring role
of the UNCRC.
19
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
21
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
There are no concrete answers to the questions above.6 It is not completely clear at what pace
governments (which have different political conditions, economic and human resource capacities)
are obliged to deliver socio-economic rights to all children in practice. Similarly, the legal
framework does not spell out what level of services has to be delivered to give effect to different
levels of rights - immediately and over time.
However, some insight about what is required has emerged from General Comments of the United
Nations Committee on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The
interpretations of human rights experts also help to give greater definition to what is required of
governments as they progressively realise child rights.
Second, if governments have not put in place programmes to realise at least a minimum core
of each socio-economic rights and are not allocating resources to these programmes, the onus is
on the relevant member states’ government to prove that the resources (financial and or
administrative) are not available.
Third, in deciding how much can be allocated to programmes designed to give effect to child
socio-economic rights, governments must adopt a broad view of resource availability and make
full use of the maximum resources available.8
6 7
As De Vylder (2000:44) has pointed out, the obligations On the issue of the minimum core obligation, see the UN
clause (Article 4) in the CRC and limitations around it are Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
intentionally vague. There are obvious difficulties around comment number 3. Also, look at the emphasis on basic
prescribing what each country can afford to spend on services in the articles relating to socio-economic rights in
eradicating poverty immediately, without running into the CRC.
macro-economic imbalances. 8
See Van Bueren, G. (1999) ‘Alleviating Poverty through
22 the Constitutional Court’ in South African Journal of
Human Rights , vol.15, pp.52-74.
Chapter two: Child rights
Fourth, even though the rights treaties do not prescribe a precise rate for rolling out
services that give effect to child socio-economic rights, they emphasise that governments
must do as much as is possible, as quickly as possible, taking into account all resources.
They also emphasise government’s obligation to prioritise rapid delivery of basic services
to give effect to the basic socio-economic rights of all children in need.9 This suggests
that government must roll out services (particularly basic services) to realise the rights
(particularly a minimum core content) as quickly as possible, progressively up-grading
what is being provided to fulfil the rights.
Fifth, governments cannot take steps backwards, say for example by terminating
programmes designed to give effect to socio-economic rights or reducing the quantity
and/or level of services produced via them.
Sixth, if large numbers of children are denied access to their socio-economic rights,
particularly to a minimum core of their basic socio-economic rights, it will be assumed
that a government is not doing all it can.10 Moreover, the government will bear the
burden of proof in establishing that it is fulfilling its obligation to child socio-economic
rights (for example by proving that sufficient resources are just not available and it just
could not build the necessary administrative capacity to provide the needed services).
Seventh, in cases were child socio-economic rights are not being fully realised (either due to
lack of existence of programmes or because there is not full access to services in established
programmes), governments must have plans that shows how the rights are to be delivered over
time.
10
As the UN Committee on Economic, Social and
9
Cultural Rights has declared in one of its interpreting
Unless there really are severe budget shortfalls comments on the ESC covenant: ‘a State party in which
that absolutely prohibit spending on basic services any significant number of individuals is deprived of
for children, it may be best here to think in terms essential foodstuffs, of essential primary health, of
of governments having to roll out services to basic shelter and housing , or of the most basic forms
deliver basic socio-economic rights as quickly as of education, is, prima facie (at first look) failing to
real administrative capacity allows. discharge its obligations under the Covenant’. See UN 23
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
General Comment 3: ‘The Nature of State Parties’
Obligations’, paragraph 10.
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
This summary of the obligations on governments to deliver child rights can be used as a guide when
designing a research project to monitor your government’s budgeting for child socio-economic
rights. However, it is important for any researcher embarking on such an initiative to understand
any specific obligations on the state and in particular on government in the country in question. It is
useful to consult legal experts in your country. Where child rights and associated obligations are set
out in a constitution (as in South Africa), the precise details of the rights and obligations on
government will differ slightly from country to country. The rights and obligations in the country’s
constitution will be dominant in setting out exactly what the obligations on government are. It is not
clear how the obligations on state parties to deliver child socio-economic and other rights would
differ in countries that are affected by sanctions or war. (See the first case study example in Appendix
I for an overview of the obligations on government to deliver child-specific constitutional socio-
economic rights in South Africa.)
The international human rights treaties do not define the exact package of services or types of
programmes that state parties (and by inference governments) must use as a means to give effect to
child rights. It is left up to the domestic country to decide exactly what programmes and services
will be most effective. In every country, the minimum core of each socio-economic right that
government is obliged to deliver to children will have to be considered in relation to that country’s
administrative (and financial) capacity and what programmes can best be used to deliver this.
The market mechanism channel for the fulfilment of child rights works in the following two ways:
24
Chapter two: Child rights
• When markets generate income in poor households, this increases the resource capacity of
parents for spending on food, clothes and shelter for them and their children. It also increases
the ability of children to access the public services that are important to realise their rights
(such as health, education, justice and welfare services). As the income of parents in poor
households increases, so too does their ability to spend on transport and other transaction costs
needed to give children access to public services.
• Income generated in markets is a crucial source of the tax revenue. Especially in the absence of
sufficient foreign aid, governments can use increases in tax revenue to finance state programmes
delivering services to children.
Aside from putting in place and enforcing laws, the most significant way in which the state
contributes towards the fulfilment of child rights (particularly child socio-economic rights), is by
developing and implementing programmes targeted at the delivery of services to children. Such
programmes are needed to deliver social security (income payments), health services, education
services (including early childhood development services), justice, police and nutrition services to
children. In order to fulfil their child rights obligations, governments need to allocate resources in
their budgets to these types of programmes for children, and ensure that the corresponding funds are
spent effectively.
Where child poverty and violation of child rights is extensive and severe, there is a desperate need
for both the private sector (markets) and the state sector to work rapidly in carrying out their roles
in relation to child rights. In most developing countries, due to limited investment and employment
generation for unskilled workers, the market mechanism is not playing an adequate role in helping
to deliver child rights. This intensifies the burden on the state. The capacity of states to develop and
implement programmes to deliver services to children is undermined by insufficient government
revenue (which is, in turn, related to stagnant markets). This cycle highlights how important it is to
encourage private sector investment and employment creation, while at the same time increasing the
level and efficiency of spending on public services for the fulfilment of child rights. The
international finance community plays a significant role in supporting the rapid delivery of child
rights (particularly socio-economic rights) in very poor countries.
25
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
• Private markets help to fulfil • The state sector helps fulfil child
child rights via employment rights via:
creation that raises income in
- Developing and enforcing laws
poor households. This in turn
increases household capacity to - Designing programmes to
spend on basic services and to deliver services to children
access public services for - Allocating resources to the
children that help them realise programmes
their rights.
- Implementing the programmes
in a way that ensures rapid
• Private markets help to deliver
roll-out of quality services to
child rights by generating
all children in need.
income that is the base for the
tax revenue required to finance
public spending on services • To play its role government has to
that are needed to fulfil child use the revenue collected through
rights. taxes and borrowing. Most
revenue is gathered by tax from
firms and individuals that earn
their income in private markets.
However, in some developing
countries, where private markets
are thin, borrowing (especially
from abroad), aid and tax revenue
generated from incomes earned in
the state sector, are also important.
26
Chapter two: Child rights
27
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
The role of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child was established to monitor the
implementation of the CRC in countries that have ratified it. Two years after ratifying the CRC, the
government of the ratifying country is required to submit a report to this committee on progress
with implementation. Civil society organisations in the country, including NGOs, are encouraged
to submit ‘shadow reports’. Thereafter, the government reports and shadow reports are submitted at
five-year intervals. The committee responds to the government and NGOs’ reports via a report of
their own, which highlights concerns about progress in fulfilling obligations and makes
recommendations on what the government in question needs to do in order to stay true to its CRC
commitments. The press (international and domestic) often gives considerable space to negative
comments by the committee on a country’s performance in implementing the CRC. The CRC is
the only international human rights treaty that expressly gives (in article 43) NGOs a role in
monitoring its implementation. The committee has systematically encouraged NGOs to submit
reports, documentation or other information in order to provide it with a comprehensive picture as
to how the convention is being implemented in a particular country. It is clear that budget
monitoring from a child rights perspective can make a useful contribution in this regard.
Politicians play a crucial role in deciding how society’s resources are allocated. This opens up an
action space for using budget research as a tool to pressurise government officials into spending
more on the poor and on child rights.
28
Chapter two: Child rights
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child: http://
www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/global/ilo/law/afchild.htm
International Human Rights Internship Programme and Asian Forum for Human
Rights and Development. 2000. Circle of Rights: Economic, Social & Cultural
Rights Activism: A Training Resource. Washington: International Human Rights
Internship Programme.
29
Part 1: Introduction to the budget and child rights
Scott, L. 1998 ‘Another Step Towards Indivisibility: Identifying the Key Features of
Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, in Human Rights Quarterly.
United Nations. Database of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the
Child. www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf.
30
Chapter three: Pegging out the research terrain
Part 2
Developing a research
framework for a
child budget study
29
Part 2: Developing a research framework
30
Chapter three:
Pegging out the research terrain
Chapter three: Pegging out the research terrain
31
Part 2: Developing a research framework
• First, a desired timeframe has to be decided upon and stated. For example, it could be clarified
that the aim of the research study, to be conducted in 2002, is to analyse government’s
performance in budgeting for child socio-economic rights over the fiscal year period 1995/96-
2004/05. The choice of the time period will obviously vary across studies and countries. Take
into account for what period(s) budget data is available, and any other relevant factors such as
the date on which a new government assumes office or when a set of new public programmes
was put in place for children.
• Secondly, point out that the exact time frame that will be covered in the analysis of budget
allocations and services for children will depend on the various dates when the relevant
programmes were implemented.
Because child socio-economic rights are inter-dependent in this way, it would of course be ideal for
every child budget study to cover the full spectrum of rights. However, time, research capacity and
financial constraints usually make this impossible. So during the conceptualisation stage of a study,
the researcher or team of researchers usually face the difficult challenge of deciding which
32
Chapter three: Pegging out the research terrain
particular rights to include and which to exclude from the analysis. In so doing, it is useful to
consider the following questions:
Which rights lend themselves to budget analysis and which do not? For
which rights is it possible to access budget and service delivery data?
Budget analysis in relation to child rights involves analysis not only of how much is allocated to and
spent on programmes that deliver child rights. It also involves research into the services that flow
from these budget inputs and children’s access to such services. So it is important to consider the
ease with which you can access good information on budget allocations and spending, but also on
service provision in relation to each of the rights. Generally, it is easier to conduct the necessary
analysis when there are specific programmes targeted at delivering the right in question to children.
It should also be possible to access information, either from budget documentation or from
government officials, about how much has been allocated to and spent on these programmes.
For example, in many countries, there are child-specific programmes targeted at realising the
child’s rights to social assistance and education. If in addition, it is feasible to access the
corresponding information on allocations and spending in these programmes, it would be relatively
easy to conduct an analysis on these two rights. On the other hand, it is usually difficult to focus a
budget study on the child’s right to shelter. There are often no child-specific programmes aimed at
delivering this right. It is also almost impossible to identify how much of the total money allocated
to and spent on housing programmes for example, actually flows to children.
33
Part 2: Developing a research framework
Capacity constraints
In defining the scope of your study, it is essential also to consider the time availability and the
expertise of the research team that will be responsible to conduct and write up the research. It is
more useful to cover fewer rights and generate good information on government’s performance in
budgeting for these, than to cover a large number of rights in a way that is too vague or superficial.
officials responsible for allocating resources to and drawing up budgets for child rights
programmes
officials responsible for designing policies and programmes relating to child rights.
34
Chapter four:
Setting research questions for
Chapter four: Setting a child
research questions budget study
for a child budget study
The process of identifying and selecting the research questions for a child budget study is
particularly important. The research questions give shape to the kind of information that will be
generated by the study. This in turn will determine the potential for the study to be used as a
tool to promote child rights.
Figure 4 sets out a process that can be used to this end. After clarifying the objective and scope
of the study (as discussed in chapter 3), this chapter pursues the following five steps to identify
and ultimately to select research questions for a child budget study.
Figure 4 – A process for setting research questions for a child budget study
Step one: Derive research questions from the child rights legal framework
• Establish what the obligations on government are to budget for child rights by consulting relevant legal
documents, such as the CRC, ICESCR, ICCPR, domestic laws and constitutions, expert opinion and child rights
jurisprudence
• Derive and list research questions that logically flow from these obligations
Step two: Derive questions from considering what information the target audience would find useful
• Consult with parliamentarians, government officials and child rights advocates about what information would be
useful to them
• Use input gathered from consultations to derive potential research questions.
Step four: Develop questions aimed at gathering useful information from children
• Develop research questions to gather information from children about their experiences of poverty and the
extent to which their rights are being violated, their experiences of service delivery in government- financed
programmes aimed at realising the relevant child rights and/or their views on what government should be
prioritising in their budgets.
Step 1 in the process of setting research questions for a child budget study thus involves:
• establishing what obligations there are on government to budget for child rights in the country
in question; and
Chapter 2 of this guide identified the obligations placed on governments – by their ratification of
particular human rights treaties – to realise child rights in their respective countries. The chapter
highlighted some of the questions left hanging in the legal framework pertaining to child rights. It
also outlined how these questions have been addressed by human rights role players to provide more
clarity on governments’ child rights obligations.
Against this background, it is unrealistic to presume that a child budget study should try to address
all of the questions implied by the child rights obligations. However, it is useful to include at least
some of these questions in such a study. For parliamentarians and civil society organisations trying
to promote child rights, there will be value in any information that helps to shed light on the extent
to which a government is or is not meeting its obligations towards children.
36
Chapter four: Setting research questions for a child budget study
rights treaties that are relevant to the country you will focus on. To gain a more detailed
understanding of the obligations –especially the budget obligations - on government to deliver child
rights in the country in question, you may need to consult experts in the human rights law of the
country.
Once you have a clear idea of the obligations on government to deliver (and in particular to budget
for) child rights in a given country, it will be possible to summarise the obligations into a concise
list. This list can then be used to identify potential research questions for the study.
Section 2.3 of this guide provided a summary of the consensus emerging around the nature of the
obligations on government to deliver child socio-economic rights. Figure 5 on the following page
shows what research questions may be drawn from these obligations.
The following listing of government obligations to deliver child socio-economic rights and
attendant research questions can be used as a baseline in countries where the CRC and ICESCR
has been ratified.
However, every team of researchers will need to adapt the obligations and attendant research
questions to take into account any child rights and government obligations that are specific to the
country in question. If the study you are planning is to cover child rights that are not socio-
economic, questions related to the obligations on government to deliver these rights will also need
to be added.
37
Part 2: Developing a research framework
• Governments cannot take steps backwards, say for example by • If yes, are the services being provided
terminating programmes designed to give effect to socio-economic through the programme quality services and
rights or reducing the quantity and/or level of services produced via are they being produced efficiently?
them. • If yes, what sort of problems (non-financial
• If large numbers of children are denied access to their socio- and financial) have to be overcome in the
economic rights, particularly to a minimum core of their basic programme to ensure that services are in
socio-economic rights, it will be assumed that a government is not future rolled out quickly to all children in
doing all it can. Moreover, the government will bear the burden of need (particularly basic services)?
proof in establishing that it is fulfilling its obligation to child • If yes, but there are problems undermining
socio-economic rights. rapid roll-out of services to all children on an
• In cases were child socio-economic rights are not being fully equitable basis, what is government’s plan to
realised (either due to lack of programmes or because there is not develop this and other programmes to
full access to services in established programmes), governments overcome the service delivery programmes
must have plans that show how the rights are to be delivered over preventing universal access to services and
realisation of the child right?
time.
38
Chapter four: Setting research questions for a child budget study
• What percentage of total budgets allocated to child rights programmes find their way to these
programmes and are spent?
• How efficiently are budget allocations (inputs) translated into budget services (outputs) in
programmes targeted at child rights?
Third, advocacy organisations will probably be interested in information that shows the real trend
over time in allocations to child rights programmes, the percentage of the total budget flowing to
child rights programmes, and the trend in the real value of any grant payments flowing to children.
Such information can often be used to lobby for increases in allocations to children. This suggests
the following questions:
• What proportion of the total government budget has been allocated to the programmes
designed to give effect to child rights?
• What is the real trend in the allocations to child rights programmes over the time period in
question?
39
Part 2: Developing a research framework
• What is the real trend in the value of grants to children over the time period in question?
• What is the extent and depth of child poverty in the country and its geographical spread? More
specifically, what is the income child poverty rate and child poverty shares in different regions?
• What are the prospects for child poverty to be reduced in the near future?
Finally, government officials and parliamentarians will often have an interest in constructive
suggestions about whether budget allocations to child rights programmes are sufficient and if not,
by how much they should change. Such information can be extremely valuable to improve
budgeting and programming in practice. Unfortunately, this kind of information is not easy to
generate. Answering these questions requires modelling and costing of the programme in question.
This in turn calls for a synthesis of in-depth knowledge of administration and other input costs over
time, how administrative capacity and the price of inputs are likely to change in future, as well as
sound projections on the number of children eligible for the service produced by the programme in
question.1 While not to be tackled lightly, this interest on the part of a target audience highlights
the following questions:
• Are the budget allocations to programmes designed to give effect to child rights sufficient?
• If not, what needs to be done by way of increasing budget allocations and building
administrative capacity in child rights programmes?
1
The child rights programmes that are most conducive to
analysis of the sufficiency of budgets are those put in place to
deliver the right to social assistance.
40
Chapter four: Setting research questions for a child budget study
Section 2.4 of the guide made reference to the suggestion that both the market mechanism and
government action play important roles in reducing child poverty – and thus delivering of child
socio-economic rights (World Bank ,1990; Annand & Ravallion, 1993). When the market
mechanism is not making an adequate contribution to reducing child poverty, this increases the
burden on the state. So the worse the child poverty situation is in a country and the smaller the
prospects for markets to help reduce poverty, the more important it becomes for government to
deliver child rights via the allocation of resources to effective programmes that realise child rights.
This insight highlights the value of posing the following research questions:
• What are the prospects for child poverty to be reduced in the near future via employment
creation amongst the parents of poor children?
Economic theory also provides insight into the link between budget inputs (allocations) and outputs
(services). Budget allocations to programmes targeted at child poverty reduction and child rights
realisation are not ends in themselves. They are merely a vehicle needed to produce publicly
financed services that can help to reduce child poverty and realise child rights. This implies that
budget inputs (allocations) must not be viewed in isolation from the budget outputs (services) they
produce. To draw useful conclusions about government’s performance in budgeting for children, it
is thus necessary to ask questions not only about the size of budget allocations to child rights
programmes but also about the services produced from these allocations. This suggests the
following questions:
• What quantity and quality of services are being produced by budget allocations to child rights
programmes?
41
Part 2: Developing a research framework
• Are all children (including the most vulnerable) benefiting from budget allocations by
accessing the services produced and are services being rolled out quickly?
• What is the level of efficiency in translating budget allocations into quality outputs in
programmes targeted at child rights, and how has this been changing over time?
• Information that reveals children’s experiences of poverty and violations of rights, particularly
basic socio-economic rights.
• Information that reveals children’s experiences of service delivery in terms of the main
programmes that government is financing and administering as a means to deliver child rights.
• Information that shows what children think government should prioritise in their budgets and
how government should alter its interventions to improve their quality of life.
Workshops can provide a forum to gather this type of information from children. It is important to
ensure that vulnerable children (such as street children, the poorest of the poor and orphans) are
included in such processes.
42
Chapter four: Setting research questions for a child budget study
Table 1 lists the potential research questions that have been drawn from the discussions and
considerations in this section of the guide. As such, the table draws together all the questions that
were derived, in turn, from the legal obligations framework, the needs of the target audience,
economic theory and the insights from children themselves. You can see that there is an overlap
between the questions that flowed from the different considerations.
When choosing exactly which questions to ask in a proposed child budget study, it is important to
consider time and capacity constraints. It is better to select fewer questions that can be answered
well with the time and capacity available, than to set all the questions but provide weak analysis and
information in trying to answer some of them.
Figure 6 reduces and summarises the full list of questions into twelve clusters of research questions
for a typical child budget study. It is these twelve clusters of questions that would then be applied to
each of the child rights selected for the study. The twelve clusters of questions are divided into:
• four clusters of questions about the existence of programmes to deliver each right and the
design of the programmes;
• three clusters of questions about the amounts allocated to these programmes; and
• five clusters of questions about budget implementation and service delivery in the programmes.
For a more detailed illustration of how this process of deriving research questions was applied and
carried through in a child budget study, see Example 1 in Appendix I. In this example, the South
African Constitution, rather than the CRC and ICESCR, was used in step 1 to identify questions
relating to the obligations on government to deliver child rights. The summary also outlines how
each set of questions was tackled by the research team to generate information that can be used to
advance child rights.
43
Table 1: Potential research questions drawn from this section of the guide
Part 2: Developing a research framework
Source of questions Research questions to ask in relation to each right chosen to be analysed in
the study
Legal framework for child socio-economic rights • Has government put in place a programme to give effect to the right?
and state obligations • If yes, what is the programme content and design (including nature of services, rate of
roll-out and implementation plan) and is it such that it promotes non-discrimination
and pays particular attention to the needs of the most vulnerable?
• If yes, how much has been allocated to the programme?
• If yes, has implementation of the programme been such that access to services has
expanded according to plan and rapidly and most children, particularly the most
vulnerable, are gaining access to services?
• If yes, have programme budget allocations been fully spent?
• If yes, but there are service delivery problems that are resulting in slow roll-out of
services and/or lack of equity in roll-out, what are the problems impeding rapid roll-out
of services to all children?
• If yes, what is government’s plan to develop this and other programmes to ensure
universal access to services and delivery of the right to all children in need?
The interests of the target audience • What percentage of the total budget allocated to the programme designed to give
(parliamentarians, government officials and child effect to child right finds itself to the programme and is spent?
rights activists)
• What is the efficiency of translation of budget inputs (allocations) into outputs
(services) in the programme aimed at giving effect to the child right?
• What proportion of the total government budget has been allocated to the programme
designed to give effect to the child right?
• What is the real trend over time in the budget allocations to the programme designed
to give effect to the right?
• If the programme designed to give effect to the right produces a monetary service, what
is the real trend in the value of the service?
• What is the extent and depth of child poverty in the country and its geographical
spread?
• What are prospects for child poverty to be reduced by market development in the near
future?
Insights from economic theory: • Are the budget allocations to programme designed to give effect to the right in question
• That the market plays a role in delivering sufficient, and if not, what needs to be done by way of increasing budget allocations
child rights via employment creation and building administrative capacity?
• That budget allocations are only wanted for
the services they produce • What is the quantity and quality of services produced by the budget allocations and
other inputs and the programme designed to give effect to the right?
• Are all children (including the most vulnerable) benefiting from budget allocations to
the programme by accessing the services produced?
• What is the level of efficiency in translating budget allocations into quality outputs in
the programme targeted at the child right in question, and how has this been changing
over time?
Considering how information from children • What are children’s experiences of poverty and what do these experiences suggest
might be used to add insight on budgeting for about the extent to which rights (particularly basic socio-economic rights) are being
child rights realised?
• What are children’s experiences of service delivery in key programmes directed at
realising child rights?
44 44 • What do children think government should spend public money on for their basic rights
to be realised and quality of life improved?
Chapter four: Setting research questions for a child budget study
3. Budget implementation and service delivery questions to ask (if there is a programme)
• Are the funds allocated to a programme reaching its intended destination and what
proportion of the budget allocated to the programme is being spent?
• What is the trend in access to services of the programme? At the national level, is access
broadening quickly, are there inter and intra-regional variations in access, is there
racial or gender discrimination and are the most vulnerable being catered for?
• What is the quality and efficiency of service delivery in the programme and have quality
and efficiency been improving over time?
• What type of service delivery problems (financial and non-financial) need to be dealt
with in future to facilitate the programme rapidly rolling out services to give effect to the
right in question to all children in need in future?
• Does government’s plan for programme development and implementation deal with the
problems (financial and non-financial) that are undermining universal access to services
and realisation of the right?
45
Part 2: Developing a research framework
Childrens Budget Unit, Idasa. 2002. Child Budget Analysis Training Manual.
Cape Town: Idasa.
World Bank. 1990. World Development Report: The State in A Changing World.
New York: Oxford University Press.
46
Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
Part 3
Basic methods for budget analysis
aimed at advancing child rights
This part of the guide offers guidance on how to go about the different aspects
of research commonly involved in child budget study:
Chapter 5 makes suggestions about how to develop a profile of child poverty.
Such a profile can be used to illustrate the extent to which child rights are
not realised in a country, and to establish the prospects for child poverty to
be reduced by market development.
Chapter 6 offers advice on how to identify what programmes are in place to
deliver the child rights being studied in the research, as well as methods for
analysing their design. These methods can be used to address the first cluster
of research questions presented in Figure 6.
Chapter 7 explains how to analyse budget allocations to the child rights
programmes that have been identified in relation to each right being
investigated in the study. This chapter provides tools for tackling the second
cluster of research questions from Figure 6.
Finally, chapter 8 considers how to go about analysing budget implementation
and service delivery in the identified programmes. The methods outlined
here can be used to unpack the third cluster of research questions identified
in Figure 6.
45
Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
46
Chapter 5:
Profiling child poverty
Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
As Sen was the first to highlight among poverty profilers, poverty is about much more than
insufficient income.1 Before trying to profile child poverty, it is
important to think about what poverty entails and to arrive at a
reflective definition. Of course, due to the subjective nature of “There has been a progressive
poverty, it is impossible for people not experiencing poverty to broadening of the definition and
understand it fully. The fact that poverty is multi-dimensional –
measurement of poverty, from
spanning the psychological, sociological, political and economic –
command over market-purchased
makes it even more difficult to define.
goods (income) to other dimensions
A good way to begin grappling with the different aspects of child of living standards such as longevity,
poverty is to consider poor children’s experiences. Poor children literacy and healthiness, and most
themselves tell us that child poverty is much more than having little recently, to concerns with risk and
money or household income.2 Participatory child poverty studies vulnerability, and powerlessness and
offer a broad description of child poverty and highlight a range of
lack of voice”
different aspects of poverty that go beyond income (Hickey and
Streak, 2001:2). According to this description, poor children may (Kanbur and Squire 1999:1, cited in Cassiem
experience any or all of the following: and Streak 2000:vii).
• Worry about not having any money of their own, about family
income level and about future income earning opportunities;
• Worry about whether an adverse shock – such as death of a parent due to HIV/AIDS or a
parent losing his or her employment (income earning power) – is going to further erode
household income and assets and the impact of the shock on the household;
• Feelings of insufficient knowledge, of worry about quality of education and/or ability to access
education;
1 See for example Sen’s 1985 book titled Commodities i i . Report of the child participation exercise
and Capabilities, Amsterdam: North Holland and his 1999 conducted by the Alliance for Children’s
book titled Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford Entitlement to Social Security (ACESS) in South
University Press. Africa. This report is titled Children Speak
Out on Poverty: Report on the ACESS Child
2 See for example: Participation Process. Johannesburg: Soul City. 47
i. Findings of the child participation exercise conducted iii. The findings of the participatory poverty
in South Africa in 2000 by Deborah Ewing and reported research conducted by the World Bank in 1999
in the Idasa study Child Poverty and the Budget 2000 – and reported in the World Bank’s 2000/01
Are Poor Children Being Put First? World Development Report.
Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
• Feelings of social exclusion and of powerlessness (at the level of the household, family or
community).
This description of child poverty fits well with the framework put forward by the World Bank in its
2000/01 World Development Report. The framework was intended as a tool for researchers to use in
profiling poverty and policy makers to use to sharpen their thinking about the role of government in
reducing poverty. The World Bank framework defines poverty in terms of four categories of
deprivation:
• Lack of ability to participate in family and community life and an inability to influence one’s
own destiny, otherwise described as powerlessness or social exclusion.
The definition of poverty set out above can be used as a framework for profiling child poverty. For
example, indicators may be identified in relation to each of the four dimensions of child poverty.
Data can then be gathered pertaining to each indicator over a given period, and analysed to provide
a relatively comprehensive overview of child poverty. The strength of this approach is the thorough
picture of child poverty it produces; but it is a very time-intensive research process.
There are two other common approaches to child poverty profiling. One involves focusing on the
income aspect of child poverty and using measurements of income child poverty based on survey
data and income poverty lines to provide information on the extent and distribution of income child
poverty. The other involves drawing on poor children’s experiences to record the non-realisation of
child rights, a method that is useful for highlighting an urgent need for government action to give
effect to child rights. These three approaches are discussed in more detail below.
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Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
Section 5.1 sets out how household income survey data can be used to shed light on the extent of
income child poverty in a country and regional shares of income poor children.
Section 5.2 explains what is involved in the approach that uses indicators to profile the four
components of child poverty identified above.
Section 5.3 illustrates how to use the child rights framework as a benchmark and draw on child
participation to highlight the violation of child rights.
Section 5.4 considers how to go about shedding light on the prospects for markets to help
reduce poverty and deliver child rights in future.
• The percentage of children that are poor (in the sense that they fall below the income poverty
line) in a country and in different regions of the country. This kind of information is otherwise
referred to as the child poverty rate in a given country or region.
• The absolute (or total) number of children that are poor in the sense that they live below the
income poverty line in a country, and in different regions of the country.
• How the total number of children that are income poor in a country is distributed across
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
different regions (or provinces) of the country. This is illustrated by expressing the number of
children that fall below the income poverty line in a particular province or region as a
percentage of the total number of income poor children in that country. This kind of
information is generally referred to as regional child poverty shares.
To generate this kind of child poverty information, the discussion below presents
guidelines for applying the following six-step procedure:
Step 4 Using the survey data and the chosen poverty line to calculate child poverty
rates or alternatively, employing a survey data analyst to calculate the
child poverty rates.
Step 5 Recording the country and regional child poverty rate findings and making
explicit what they mean
Step 6 Estimating the total number of poor children in each region and regional
child poverty shares
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Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
(and any other) poverty measurement studies, is that usually the data is a little old. For example, in
South Africa in 2002, the most recent household income and expenditure survey data was from a
survey conducted in October 1999 by government’s statistical services (Statistics South Africa).
• Consider whether you want to define the poverty line with reference to the level of income or
expenditure a child has per month. It does not really matter which is chosen.3
• If the household survey data set you have selected for the study records only data on household
income per month, then the choice will be simple – income. For the purposes of this outline,
let’s assume that the child poverty line is to be defined in terms of income.
Next, a choice must be made between an absolute or relative income poverty line:
• A relative child poverty line classifies a child as poor by comparing his or her income with that
of other members of the community. So for example a typical relative income poverty line used
in child poverty measurement studies classifies a child as poor if he/she resides in one of the
bottom 40% of households in a region, when the households in the region are ranked according
to income.
• An absolute child poverty line classifies a child as poor if he or she has an income level that is
estimated to be less than that needed for her or him to consume the goods needed to meet basic
needs. The absolute nature of child rights (including socio-economic rights) suggests that when
measuring child income poverty it is best to use an absolute poverty line.
Setting an absolute child poverty line – based on the income a child needs per
month to meet his or her basic needs
The choice of where to set the absolute child income poverty line to reflect the
minimum level of income needed to meet basic needs is plagued with problems.
In theory, the absolute income poverty line should be set at the level of income
below which a child would not have sufficient income to afford to consume the
quantity and quality of basic goods needed to live a healthy and secure life. The
level of income chosen must also be the minimum level that applies in the year in
which the household survey was conducted. In practice, it is impossible to estimate
accurately this level of income. Amongst other complicating factors, children
have different physical needs and live in different areas. The price for the basket
of goods needed to meet basic needs - whatever that contains – will vary from
place to place.
Faced with these problems, there are two options. You can yourself try to estimate
the minimum level of income needed for a child to meet his or her basic needs in
the year for which you have household survey data. Or you can look towards the
suggestions of others. Whichever route is taken, it is important to make clear
what the chosen income poverty line is, and how it was identified. An approach
taken recently at the CBU is to set our child poverty line at R400 per month per
child in 1999 rands. This choice is informed by the recommendation of a respected
research and policy committee, set up to investigate poverty and social security
strategy in South Africa.
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Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
• Think about what type of regional breakdown would be useful to meet the broader objectives of
your study.
For example, South Africa has nine provinces and survey data on income and expenditure of
households covers all these nine provinces. The majority of child rights-related programmes are
budgeted and implemented at provincial level. It thus makes sense to calculate child poverty rates
and numbers of children that fall below the poverty line for each of the nine provinces, as well as the
country as a whole.
The easiest approach is to ask a survey data analysis specialist to manipulate the data so as to:
• Identify and count the number of children in the survey that have less income than the level set
by the poverty line in each region.
• Express the total number of poor children in each region and the country identified as having
less income than that of the poverty line as a percentage of the total number of children, thereby
producing regional and country child poverty rate results.
Alternatively, if you have the computer software and basic computer skills needed to analyse the
survey data, you could calculate the poverty rates yourself. The box below sets out a simple method
to follow.
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
1. Divide the total income in each household by the number of people in the
households, thereby generating data on income per person (including per child).
2. Study the income per person data to identify the number of children in each
region and the country as a whole whose income is less than the level of the
poverty line. Count them.
3. Now count the total number of children in each region and the county as a whole.
4. Finally, express the number of children you have identified as having less income
than that of the poverty line as a percentage of the total number of children you
have identified in each region. Similarly, to arrive at a national (or country) child
poverty rate you need to express the total number of children that you have
identified as having less income per month than that set by the poverty line as a
percentage of the total number of children in the country.
Table 2: Child poverty rates in South Africa and in the nine provinces, based on income
survey data generated in 1999 and poverty line of R400/month per capita in 1999 rands
Province
Province Child poverty
rate in 1999 (%)
Gauteng 55.4
Mpumalanga 78.7
Limpopo 84.3
The results in Table 2 show the percentages of children that were poor in 1999 in the sense that they
fell below the poverty line of R400 per child per month in 1999 rands.5
The box below sets out how to do this. Table 3 illustrates a way to present your findings.
1. Record the child poverty rates from the survey data analysis for each region.
2. Record the most recent estimate of the number of children in each region of the
country, and for the country as a whole.
3. Multiply the child poverty rate for each region, by the estimated number of children
in each region to arrive at an estimate of the total number of poor children in
each region. For example, the estimated number of poor children in the Eastern
Cape region in South Africa in 2002 = the number of children in Eastern Cape
in 2002 (3 462 084) X the child poverty rate in Eastern Cape in 1999 (88.4%).
The answer is 3 060 483.
4. Use the data on the number of poor children in each province to calculate each
region or province’s percentage (share) of the total number of poor children in
the country.
For example the Western Cape region’s share of the total number of poor children in South Africa in
2002 is calculated as follows: The number of poor children in Western Cape in 2002 (712 114)
divided by the total number of poor children in South Africa in 2002 (14 360 072), X 100. This
amounts to 5%.
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Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
Table 3: Child poverty rates, estimates of poor children and child poverty shares based
on OHS 1999 and poverty line of R400/month per capita
Province
Province Child poverty Estimated number Estimated number of Child poverty share
rate in 1999 (%) of children in 2002 poor children in 2002 in 2002 (%)
• powerlessness.
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
Table 4 provides guidance on the type of indicators that can be used to profile these different aspects
of child poverty. For example, for the first deprivation category - that of insufficient income and
income earning opportunities - a key indicator of this aspect of child poverty is the child poverty
rate. Thus the income-based approach outlined in section 5.1 and this indicator-based approach to
profiling child poverty should not be seen as mutually exclusive. On the contrary, it is a good idea to
use the income-based approach as a first step in compiling a more comprehensive child poverty
profile.
Table 4: Facets of child poverty and indicators that can be used to profile them
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Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
Economic and • Feeling worried about the economic • The HIV/AIDS incidence rate and
physical vulnerability implications of a death in the family mortality rate.
or any other adverse shock (such as • The number of children living on the
that caused by retrenchment). streets, without parents, and living in
• Having to look after younger siblings child headed households.
and/or older members of the family • The unemployment rate and expected
and worrying about variations in the trends in it.
future income flows needed to meet • Child labour rates.
family needs. • School drop-out rates.
• Feeling physically insecure and • Indicators of physical abuse against
scared about being abused in future. children such as rape and assault
statistics, gun shot and land-mine wounds,
and burns.
• Indicators of the number of children
involved in violence such as statistics on
child soldiers and child gangsters.
Powerlessness • Feeling oppressed within the family It is difficult to think of any indicators
and unable to have one’s voice that can be supported by nation-wide data
heard. for this aspect of poverty. Perhaps the only
• Feeling scorned by the community. way to shed light on this is to speak to
• Feeling unable to become involved in children themselves about their
the broader development of society. experiences.
Once indicators have been selected in relation to the different dimensions of child poverty, your next
task is to gather data to support each of the indicators. Bear in mind that the child poverty profile
will be enriched if you are able to gather data that allows you to show the following (in relation to
each indicator):
• How that aspect of poverty varies across different regions of the country.
• Whether child poverty is worse for any gender, race, minority grouping, disabled children and
children without parental care.
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
To show the extent of the different aspects of child poverty across the entire country, it will be
important to try and access data to support the different indicators by drawing on national surveys
and government statistics. It is also a good idea to gather some insights on the different aspects of
child poverty in your country by conducting child participation workshops.
• Gain a good understanding of the child rights that apply in your country.
• Convene focus groups with poor children in which discussion is facilitated, and
information is gathered on their lives. Aside from simply asking poor children to
talk about their lives and what they would like to see change, a useful way to
gather information about the violation of rights (particularly basic socio-economic
rights) is to ask children what they would do with a small monthly income
supplement. Children may respond to this kind of question by explaining that
they would give money to their care-givers to buy food, use some of the money to
buy school books and clothes for school, and use some of the money for basic
toiletries. Such answers reveal starkly the existence of violations of children’s
basic socio-economic rights.
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Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
• Analyse the children’s perspectives and views with the objective of identifying
which rights are not being realised.
• Write up the information in a way that links children’s experiences to particular
rights and draws clear attention to any rights violations. For example, a story
about a child not being immunised due to it being too costly to access a health
clinic could be linked to the child’s right to primary health care. A story about
a girl who is looking after her siblings due to the death of her parents, and
working instead of attending school, can be linked to the child’s right to engage
in play and leisure, to primary education and to benefit from social security.
This approach to developing a child poverty profile can strengthen a child budget study in a
number of ways:
• It provides very clear examples of which child rights are being violated in a county and
illustrates how children are suffering because of the non-realisation of rights.
• It highlights the urgent need for action (including in the form of government programmes
and budget allocations) to realise these children’s rights.
• The information generated by this approach can be used as a powerful advocacy tool.
At the same time, this participative research approach has certain limitations, particularly if it is
not coupled with other forms of research. Naturally, only a small sample of a country’s children
can be interviewed. The information flowing from the interviews does not shed light on the
magnitude or scale of different child rights violations. Nor does it show how these violations vary
across different regions of the country. Survey data, based on a large sample of households in a
country including information on the quality of life of children, is needed to provide a quantitative
picture of child rights violations. Unfortunately, even in countries with excellent household
survey data, it is not possible to find support for all the indicators needed to paint a complete
picture of the extent and violation of all child rights.
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
The kind of data you will need to establish whether there are good prospects for income to be raised
in poor households via employment creation in a given country, includes:
Governments usually provide a forecast of the macro economy in their respective countries for the
next couple of years when presenting their budgets. This should include information on private
investment and employment creation prospects. Keep in mind that projections from government are
usually slightly optimistic, so it is worth comparing these to projections from other sources.
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Chapter five: Profiling child poverty
Glewwe, P and Van der Gaag, J. 1990. ‘Identifying the Poor in Developing
Countries: Do Different Definitions Matter?, in World Development. Vol 18(6), pp
803 - 814.
Robb, C. 1999. Can the Poor Influence Policy? Participatory Poverty Assessments
in the Developing World. Washington DC: World Bank.
Steak, J. 2001. ‘The nature and extent of child poverty in South Africa’, in Budget
Brief. Cape Town: Idasa.
Streak, J. 2000. ‘The extent and provincial distribution of child poverty in South
Africa’. Chapter one in Cassiem, S. Perry, H. Sadan, M and Streak, J., Child
Poverty and the Budget 2000 – Are poor children being put first? Cape Town: Idasa.
World Bank. 2001. World Development Report 2000/01: Attaching Poverty. New
York: Oxford University Press. Or, online at http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/
wdrpoverty
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Chapter six:
Analysing programme existence and design
Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
This chapter sets out guidelines for how to begin a process of analysing
government budgeting to advance child rights. The first part of the chapter
considers the nuts and bolts of identifying government programmes that are
relevant to the child right(s) included in your child budget study. Section 6.2 then
looks into the task of analysing programme design. It presents a number of
windows through which to assess the basic conception and attributes of a
programme set in place to advance a child right.
After making contact with the relevant government officials and establishing that there is a
programme (or are programmes) in existence to give effect to a particular child’s right, a useful next
step is to set up a meeting in order to access further information on the programme. It is also crucial
to gather any available official documents that can help you to describe and analyse the content of
the programme.
In trying to find out whether government has any programmes that help to deliver a given child
right, you may encounter some difficulties. One common problem is that a government
intervention or service that impacts on a child right may not be defined as a programme in its own
right. In other words, the budgets and services you are interested in may form part of a larger
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Chapter 6: Analysing programme existence and design
programme that is not targeted exclusively at children. For example, government may explain that
the programme aimed at delivering the child’s rights to health is a sub-component of a larger
programme to deliver health care services through public hospitals and clinics to all citizens that
cannot afford to use private medical practitioners.
Another challenge is that for some rights, like the right to education, there may be a range of
programmes directed at delivering the right. For example in South Africa there are a number of key
programmes in place to deliver the right to education. These include, among others, government’s
public ordinary schooling programme (aimed at delivering nine years of education to all children),
government’s early childhood development programme (aimed at very young children) and
government’s special needs education programme (designed to cater for children with disabilities).
When identifying the programmes in place to deliver the child rights that form part of your study, it
is important to identify all the main programmes, including those that are not targeted specifically
at children.
If there is no programme in place to deliver the child right in question, try to establish why this is so.
For example, if the argument is that there are just not enough resources in government’s budget to
finance a programme to deliver the right, even the core elements of it, then this must be recorded in
the budget study. Moreover, it should be made clear in your study that the failure of government to
design and implement a programme to give effect to the right is at odds with its obligation to do so
in terms of the CRC and any relevant regional and domestic child rights obligations.
• Pointers for describing the programme, paying attention to the level of services, rate of roll-out
of services and objectives of the programme;
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
• How to establish whether the programme caters for all groups of children - and particularly the
most vulnerable – by studying the eligibility criteria and procedure for gaining access to the
services produced by the programme; and
• If there is discrimination in the programme design, questions that may help you to analyse
government’s justification for it and establish whether government has a plan in place to reduce
it in future.
• what level of services the programme aims to deliver and for whom
• what the time schedule for delivery is and who the implementing agencies are
It is particularly important to establish whether the basic services that the CRC and other child
rights legal instruments highlight as those to be prioritised, are covered in the programme design. If
the programme does not envisage a rapid expansion of services and/or does not clearly delegate
responsibilities to different delivery agencies, this should be highlighted as it will affect the
realisation of child rights.
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Chapter 6: Analysing programme existence and design
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
It is very difficult to establish whether discrimination on the basis of insufficient resources is ‘fair’ or
justifiable. The following pointers might help you to grapple with this question and develop an
argument that casts doubt on the fairness of discrimination in the eligibility requirements of a given
programme:
• Consider how much more money could be made available to deliver rights to children by
changing budget priorities (say from spending on defence and tax cuts to primary health care
for children) or increasing operational efficiency.
• Try to locate or generate information on the actual cost implications of extending the
programme in question to children currently excluded from it. It is usually possible to illustrate
how little such a step would cost – relative to what is available in the entire budget.
• Probe into government’s efforts to secure the resources needed to realise child rights – it
remains the responsibility of government to build and access such resources (for example from
the international community). Governments are also required to develop the administrative and
infrastructure capacity needed to spend resources allocated for the implementation of relevant
programmes.
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Chapter 6: Analysing programme existence and design
The South African government justified the age restriction on the eligibility for
the CSG programme when it was introduced in April 1998. It put forth the
argument that it would not be able to afford to pay the grant (then R100) to
children of all ages who passed the means test. Is this argument justifiable?
To answer this question, the CBU considered the trend in the total amount of
revenue government has available in the budget, the cost that would have to be
incurred if government paid the grant to children of all ages, and government’s
priorities, as reflected in the budget.
Since the fiscal year 2000/01, government has seen a very positive total
government revenue scenario. This was partly due to excellent tax collection by
the South African Revenue Service, but also to fiscal prudence over the period
1996/97-1999/00. In the face of revenue windfalls, it has prioritised giving tax
relief to South African citizens. The CBU illustrated that the estimated cost of
extending the grant to all children – about R 10 billion – is less than the R 15
billion allocated by government in the 2002/03 budget for tax relief. The CBU
also argues that government should already have built – or at least be in the
process of building quickly – the financial and administrative capacity to deliver
the child’s basic right to social assistance in South Africa.
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Chapter seven:
Analysing budget
Part 3: Basic methods allocations
for budget analysis aimed at to a child
advancing rights programme
child rights
This chapter takes a closer look at methods you can use to analyse government’s
budget allocations to programmes set in place to advance child rights. The chapter
provides practical guidance on how to:
• assess what priority a particular programme has been given, by expressing the
allocation to this programme as a percentage of the total expenditure
budgeted by government;
• adjust budget allocations for inflation and work out real growth rates.
• Establishing how much has been allocated to the programmes per year – either for the time
period chosen for your analysis or since programme implementation began; and
• Recording the data on these programme budgets in a way that is easy to read and understand.
• the main government departments (for example, health, welfare, education, finance);
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Chapter 7: Analysing budget allocations to a child rights programme
To locate the budget data relevant to your study, you will need to be sure:
• whether the programme under scrutiny is financed at the national or regional (provincial) level;
and
If the programme is financed at the regional (provincial) level, look in the regional budget books
for data on budget allocations to the programme or sub-programme, focussing on the relevant
department’s budget. For example, in South Africa, the provincial level education departments –
one for each of the nine provinces – are responsible for financing and administering the public
ordinary schooling programme aimed at delivering the child’s right to education. To identify budget
allocations to this programme, it is therefore necessary to consult each province’s provincial budget
documents and look for the allocations to the public ordinary schooling programme in the section
that deals with the department of education.
In a best case scenario, when you look in the provincial or national budget books and find the
programme you are looking for, you will simply see the associated budget allocations listed.
However, this will not be the case for all programmes. Unfortunately in most cases, the way the
programmes and sub-programmes are divided will not enable you to identify the budget allocations
so easily. If this is true of the programme you are interested in, make contact with the relevant
department’s officials (either national or regional depending which is relevant) to try and access the
budget allocation data. For example, in the case of the CSG programme in South Africa, which is
financed and administered by the nine provinces, only two provinces list this programme as a sub-
programme in the Social Development Department section of their budgets. The CBU therefore
contacts social development department officials in the remaining seven provinces to get a full set of
data on budget allocations to this key child rights programme.
When the programme in question is one targeted specifically at children, a lot of badgering of
government officials should enable you to get the data you need. However, when the programme
directed at delivering the child’s right is part of a larger programme targeted at everyone,
conversations with government officials may prove futile. In many instances, government will
probably not have a system in place for recording and reporting how much of the money allocated to
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
the entire programme is specifically allocated to children’s services. For example, in South Africa,
the district health services programme, which renders primary health care services, is a key
programme in government’s strategy to deliver the child’s right to health services. A considerable
share of the money allocated to this programme is spent on rendering services (such as
immunisation) to children. But the health department does not record and report on exactly how
much money within the total programme budget is actually allocated and spent specifically on child
services.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child requires of countries that have ratified
the CRC to develop the data-recording systems needed to monitor implementation of the
convention. If you are unable to gather information on budget allocations to the child rights
programme you are investigating, it is important to highlight this and explain why you were not able
to access the data. This aspect of your research can provide a valuable tool to advocate for changes
in budgeting systems, so that it is possible to monitor government’s compliance with its child rights
obligations.
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Chapter 7: Analysing budget allocations to a child rights programme
Northern Cape 31 51 63
Sources: Estimates of Expenditure for 2001/02 and 2002/03 for KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape and provincial Social Security
Departments for the other provinces.
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
budget pie has been given to the child rights programme. So it sheds light on the level of priority
given to the child rights programme in the allocation of public resources available for spending in a
particular year. You might find that a very small proportion of total government expenditure is
flowing to a child rights programme, even in the face of extensive violation of that right. Including
such evidence in your child budget study provides strong grounds to advocate for increased budget
allocations to the programme in question. The steps below set out how to express an amount
allocated to a child rights programme as a percentage of the total budgeted for expenditure by
government.
• First, list the years for which you have data on allocations to the child rights-related programme
you are researching. Now study the national government budget documentation or speak to
national treasury officials in your country to get data on the total government expenditure
budgeted for in each of the corresponding years.
• Second, for each year, divide the amount allocated to the child rights programme by the total
amount of expenditure in the budget and multiply by 100 to get a percentage. The box below
provides an example.
If you find that the proportion of total government expenditure allocated to the child rights
programme in question is small relative to an unmet need for the right to be realised, it is important
to highlight this. However, any call for increasing the size of the allocation to a programme should
take practical factors into account. For example, having more resources assigned to a programme is
only useful when there is a corresponding capacity within government to spend the funds. If such
capacity does not exist, consider how quickly such capacity can feasibly be built. Also think about
the need to spend public money more efficiently. There is no use government wasting public
resources by allocating them to programmes that do not have the capacity to spend them efficiently.
It is not a quick process to build government capacity to spend higher allocations and roll out
services more quickly to larger groups of children in need. It usually requires the development of
human resources, investment in infrastructure, expanding access to the services of the programme
and improvements in the marketing and targeting strategies of the programme.
Once you know what proportion of total budgeted expenditure has been allocated to the child rights
programme you are studying, it might be useful to compare this to expenditure on a competing priority, such as
defence or interest on debt payments. You can use exactly the same method to calculate the proportion of total
budgeted for expenditure allocated to the competing priority. For example, one of the main budget documents
in South Africa (National Treasury’s Budget Review) for 2002 states that the total amount allocated to paying
interest on state debt in 2002/03 was R47 503 million. To show the proportion of total budgeted for expenditure
allocated to interest payments, divide the interest payment allocation (R47 503 million) by the amount budgeted
for total government expenditure (R287 909 million) and multiply by 100. This works out to be 16.4%.
• The average growth rate in the budget allocations over the particular period
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
When you work out the year-on-year growth rate in a budget allocation, you are
trying to find out how much the size of that budget’s allocation (to a
programme, sector, department or whatever) grew from one year to another.
To calculate year-on-year growth rates in budget allocations to a child rights
programme (or any other programme), apply the following formula:
Growth rate = (year2 allocation – year1 allocation) / year1 allocation X 100.
Table 6 shows the budget allocation data for the public ordinary school (POS)
programme in South Africa’s nine provinces for the period 2001/02 – 2004/05.
The POS programme is one of the main public programmes in place to deliver
the child’s right to basic education in South Africa.
Table 6: Budget allocations for the public ordinary school programme in South Africa
and in the nine provinces, 2002/03-2004/05, R thousands
Example 1: Calculating the nominal growth rate in the combined allocation for
the provincial public ordinary school programme between 2002/03 and 2003/04
• The combined provincial allocation for 2002/03 (year 1) is R 41 694 012 000
or R41.6 billion.
• For 2003/04 (year 2) it is R44 817 621 000 or R44.8 billion.
• The percentage growth rate in the total public ordinary school budget
allocation between 2002/03 and 2003/04 is (44 817 621 000 – 41 694 012
000) / 41 694 012 000 X 100 = 7.4%
• The budget allocation for the POS programme in the Eastern Cape in 2003/
04 (year 1) is R7 142 415 000 or R7.1 billion.
• In 2004/05 (year 2) it is R 7 278 829 000.
• The year-on-year growth rate between the years 2003/04 and 2004/05 is (7
278 829 – 7 142 415 000) / 7 142 415 000 X 100 = 1.9%
How to calculate the average yearly growth rate in allocations over a period
Follow the steps below to calculate the average yearly growth rate in budget
allocations over a period:
• First work out yearly growth rates for the period.
• Next, sum up the yearly growth rates.
• Then, divide the summed growth rate by the number of yearly growth rates
calculated.
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Part 3: Basic methods for budget analysis aimed at advancing child rights
Working out the annual average growth rate in the public ordinary schools budget
allocation in the Western Cape between the period 2002/03 and 2004/05
This example is based on the budget allocation data for the public ordinary
schooling programme provided in Table 6 above.
• The year-on-year growth rate in the budget allocation to the programme
between 2002/03 and 2003/04 is 5.2%.
• The year-on-year growth rate in the budget allocation to the programme in
the Western Cape between 2003/04 and 2004/05 is 4.4%.
• The annual average growth rate for the period 2002/03-2004/05 is (5.2
+ 4.4) / 2 = 4.8%.
Calculating the annual average growth rate in the budget allocation to the child
support grant programme in Limpopo province over the period 2001/02 to 2004/05
This example is based on the budget allocation data for the child support grant
programme provided in Table 3.4 above.
• The amount of the child support grant allocation for Limpopo Province for
2001/02 is R 272 million. For 2002/03 it is R546 million, for 2003/04 R854
million and 2004/05 it is R853 million.
• The year-on-year growth rate between 2001/02 and 2002/03 is 100.7%.
• The year-on-year growth rate between 2002/03 and 2003/04 is 56.4%.
• The year-on-year growth rate between 2003/04 and 2004/05 is -0.1%.
• The annual average growth rate in the budget allocations for the Limpopo
province over the period 2001/02 to 2004/05 is the sum of all three year-on-
year growth rates (100.7 + 56.4 + -0.1), divided by the number of year-on-
year growth rates calculated (3). It is therefore 52.3%.
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Step four Use the price deflators to convert nominal values to real values
Step five Work out the real (year-on-year and average) annual growth rates
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Table 7 shows the nominal budget allocations to the public ordinary school
programme in South Africa for the years 2002/03, 2003/04 and 2004/05. As a
first step towards converting these nominal allocations into real values, it is
easiest to make the first year, 2002/03, your base year.
Table 7: Budget allocations for the public ordinary school programme in South
Africa, 2002/03-2004/05, R thousands
• First, decide whether you want to use a CPI, PPI or GDP measure of inflation.
The CPI is a measure of inflation that is based on the rate of change of prices in the average
basket of goods that the typical consumer buys. The PPI inflation rate is based on a measure of
the rate of increase in prices of the range of goods that a typical producer purchases. The GDP
inflation rate is based on a measure of the rate of increase in prices of a broader range of goods
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in the economy than CPI or PPI. However, it excludes imported goods. Most countries have
two CPI measures of inflation. The first, usually called CPI, includes mortgage costs (the
interest rate). The second, known in South Africa as CPIX, excludes the mortgage costs.
Because the GDP inflation rate is the broadest definition of the inflation rate it is a good idea to
use it for the conversion of nominal budget allocations into real budget allocations.
Alternatively, use either of the CPI measures.
• Second, decide where you are going to get your estimate of the inflation rate
for the period in question. For example, there are two primary sources of projections on
GDP inflation in South Africa. The national treasury releases its estimates of inflation in the
mini budget, otherwise known as the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) in
November each year and in the Budget (which it presents at the end of February each year).
Then there are also the projections of economists in the private sector. The CBU usually uses
the most recent projections of GDP inflation from national treasury for our conversions of
nominal budget allocations into real budget allocations.
For the purposes of this exercise, the GDP inflation rate will be used to convert
the nominal allocations to the public ordinary schooling programme in South
Africa for the years 2003/04 and 2004/05 into real values. Table 8 below gives
the most recent projections for GDP inflation from the national treasury.
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• The price index is a set of index numbers that shows how the average price of a bundle of goods
has changed over time. If the GDP inflation rate is used to calculate the price index (as in our
example), it will show how the average price of a broad spectrum of goods consumed and
produced in the economy has changed over time. If the CPI inflation rate is used to compute
the price index, it will show how the average price of a basket of goods purchased by an average
consumer has changed over time.
• Price deflators simply express the price index, and hence the trend in the average price level, in a
different way. As is illustrated below, they are calculated by dividing the price index by 100.
In year one – The price index = 100 The price index is always 100
2002/03 in the base year.
In year two – The price index is 100 + 100 X 6.6 is the projected GDP
2003/04 (6.6/100) = 106.6 inflation rate for 2003/04
In year three – The price index is 106.6 + 5.1 is the projected GDP
2004/05 106.6 X (5.1/100) = 111.7 inflation rate for 2004/05
To derive price deflators for each year you simply divide the price index by
100 as follows:
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The formula for translating nominal budget allocations into real budget
allocations is:
Table 9 below uses the deflators calculated from GDP inflation projections for 2003/04 and
2004/05 in step 3 above. For each year, the nominal budget allocation to the POS programme is
divided by the price deflator, thereby converting these amounts into real values.
Table 9: Conversion of nominal public ordinary school programme budget allocations into real
budget allocations using GDP price deflators
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The example below uses the data on real budget allocations to the public
ordinary school programme as generated in Table 9 above:
• The year-on-year growth rate from 2002/03 to 2003/04 in the real budget
allocation to the programme is 42 042 796 000 – 41 694 012 000 / 41 694
012 000 X 100 = 0.8%.
• The year-on-year growth rate in the real budget allocation to the progamme
between 2003/04 and 2004/05 is 42 091 153 000 – 42 042 796 000 / 42 042
796 000 X 100 = 0.1%.
• The annual average real growth rate in budget allocations to the programme
for the period 2002/03 –2004/05 is 0.8 + 0.1 / 2 = 0.45%.
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The presentation of data in Table 10 below makes it easy to compare the real
growth rates in allocations to the POS programme with the nominal growth
rates. It shows that the increases in the amounts of money allocated to the
programme over these years translate into very small real increases in
purchasing power.
Table 10: Nominal and real year-on-year and annual average growth rates in budget
allocations to the primary ordinary schools programme in South Africa, 2002/03-
2004/05
Percentage 2002/03-2003/04 2003/04-2004/05 Annual average,
2002/03 - 2004/05
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methods for budget analysis service provision
at advancing childs rights in child rights programmes
• the funds are channelled off into another priority area (or into someone’s pocket) instead of
being transferred to the child rights programme; or
• the allocated funds reach their programme destination, but instead of all the funds being spent
on the production of services in the programme, some are simply wasted.
Against this background, two useful questions to ask in a child budget study are:
• Have the funds allocated to the child rights programmes found their way to their programme
destination?
To address the first question, it is best to speak to officials responsible for the implementation of the
programme in question. They should be able to tell you whether allocated funds are in effect being
transferred for programme implementation.
Answering the second question calls for data on actual expenditure in the programme being
analysed. The data on actual expenditure can then be compared to the budget allocation data, in
order to calculate the percentage of allocated funds spent in different years.
To access data on actual expenditure in a child rights programme, the first place to look is in the
budget documents (the same place you would look for data on the budget allocation to the
programme). Most countries’ budget documents record data on allocations and estimated actual
expenditure for previous years at the departmental, programme and sub-programme level. If the
budget documents do not supply this information, a second option is to contact the government
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officials responsible for implementing the programme. They may have access to actual expenditure
figures for the years you are interested in.
Calculating the percentage of budget allocations spent on the CSG programme in South Africa
Table 11 uses budget allocations and actual expenditure data in the Child Support Grant programme
in South Africa during the financial year 2001/02.
Table 11: Percentage of CSG programme budget allocations in South Africa spent in 2001/02
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It is not always easy or possible to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the way access to services
provided by a particular child rights programme has either expanded or not. It involves gathering
and presenting data that shows the following:
• The trend in expansion in access to services (at the national level, regional and intra-regional
level) over time, relative to the number of children needing the services;
• Whether any particular categories of children (and particularly vulnerable children such as
children without parents, street children, very poor children and children with disabilities) are
being marginalised in the roll-out of services.
The most common method for shedding light on changes and variations in
access to services, is to use ‘access to services indicators’ and data that shows
how the indicator varies across time and geographical space. The best
indicators are those that express services rendered as a percentage of children
that are estimated to be in need of gaining access to the service produced by the
programme.
So for example, to study changes in access to the Public Ordinary Schooling
(POS) programme in South Africa, a good indicator to use would be the primary
school enrolment rate. This expresses the number of children enrolled in
primary school as a proportion of children of school-going age.
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To illustrate how access to basic education has changed over time using this
indicator, it would be necessary to gather data on the primary school enrolment
rate for the entire country and for each year of the period that you are studying.
To illustrate the regional trend in access, you would need to gather data on the
primary school enrolment rate in different regions for the different years. And
finally, to illustrate differences in access within particular regions (intra-
regional differences in access), you would need to gather data on primary school
enrolment rates for different parts of particular regions. It is often very
difficult to gather this latter kind of data.
The Child Support Grant (CSG) programme is the primary government programme
aimed at realising the child’s right to social assistance in South Africa. So a good
indicator of the trend in access to this programme is the take-up rate of the CSG.
The take-up rate reflects the number of children receiving the CSG as a percentage
of the total number of children eligible for a social grant in each province. To
illustrate how such an indicator can be used, Table 12 below provides data on the
national and provincial take-up rate for the child support grant in South Africa
over the period March 1999-May 2002. For each date, the table shows how the
take-up rate differs depending on the estimates that have been used for the total
number of children eligible for the grant.
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Table 12: Take-up rates for the CSG based on official eligibility estimates and the Finance and
Fiscal Commission’s estimates of eligibility (March 1999 to May 2002)
Per cent March 1999 March 2000 July 2001 March 2001 May 2002
Official FFC Official FFC Official FFC Official FFC Official FFC
Eastern Cape 0.7 0.6 7 7 21 20 32 31 36 34
Free State 0.5 0.7 5 6 10 29 32 43 36 48
Gauteng 2.0 0.5 53 13 152 37 206 50 233 56
KwaZulu-Natal 1.3 0.9 11 8 49 34 72 50 85 59
Limpopo 0.3 0.3 9 7 27 21 43 33 50 38
Mpumalanga 0.3 0.2 13 9 45 31 59 40 64 43
North West 0.5 0.4 10 9 32 32 47 46 51 49
Northern Cape 7.5 1.7 43 10 72 17 104 24 118 28
Western Cape 3.9 1.9 12 6 76 37 146 71 173 85
Total 0.9 0.6 10 8 37 30 55 41 63 47
Source: Streak, J. and Wehner, J. 2002:21-22.
In most countries, efforts to monitor the expansion of access to services in child rights programmes
are plagued by an absence of data, or the availability of only old data. In the face of this problem,
the best possible indicators and data should be used to paint as good a picture of roll-out of services
to children as possible.
In addition to showing progress in the roll-out of services in a child rights programme relative to
need for that service, it can also be useful to look back to government’s original plan for the
programme. Is the rate slower or faster than the promised rate (at a regional and national level)?
Once you have illustrated the trend in expansion in access and its regional dimensions, you have an
opportunity to highlight what the indicator says about the number of children that are still without
access to the service in question and how they are distributed across the country. Such information
can be used to advocate for increased budget allocations and/or other initiatives (such as investing in
administrative capacity in the programme and access infrastructure). It can also be useful for
government’s own planning for the extension of service delivery.
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There are two methods that can help you to conduct this aspect of the analysis:
• First, it may in some cases be possible to access additional data to support the
indicator you already used to show how access to services varied across time
and geographical area. For example, to illustrate the gender dimension of access
to services of the public ordinary school programme, you could (if data permits)
compare the primary school enrolment rates for girls as opposed to boys, and
for different racial or ethnic categories.
• Second, you could conduct interviews with service providers (government
officials working in the programme) and users (children and their caregivers).
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In the absence of such data, you may consider conducting interviews with service
providers, children and people working in poor communities who have knowledge
of the experiences of these categories of children. For example, interviews with
children and service providers in South Africa have been useful in highlighting
how children that live in remote rural areas, those from desperately poor households,
those that have disabilities or have no parents, are discriminated against in services
provided by child rights programmes. More specifically, these vulnerable categories
of children often find it difficult to access the services of education programmes,
social assistance programmes and the programme aimed at realising the child’s
right to be registered at birth (ACESS, 2002). This approach can help you to
gather anecdotal evidence on discrimination in access to services. However, it will
not reveal a conclusive picture of the extent of the problem or how it has been
increasing (or decreasing) over time.
Such interviews can be structured in a way that allows you to establish the following:
• What role do financial1 and non-financial constraints play in containing the pace at which
services from the programme can be delivered to all children who need them?
1
The easiest way to explore whether insufficient budgets services, in order to calculate what it would cost
are containing the roll-out of a programme is to speak to government to deliver services to give effect to the right in
service providers. A more rigorous, yet very difficult question for all children. This cost can then be compared
method involves using data on the number of children in with the size of the amount actually allocated to the
92 need of the services of the programme and the cost of programme.
Chapter 8: Analysing budget implementation and ser vice provision in child rights programmes
Are high transport and other costs a major stumbling block in accessing services
(particularly for children in very poor and remote rural areas)?
Do parents play a crucial role in accessing services, thereby excluding children without
parents from effective access?
Is the main factor explaining lack of universal access to the programme the design of the
programme - are all children not eligible for the services of the programme?
Against this background, a next step is to use the information you have gathered from interviews to
propose what type of initiatives government (perhaps with the help of finance from the international
community) can engage in to ensure it meets its obligation to deliver the right in question to all
children, quickly, in the future.
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so that in future, they will be able to implement effective programmes to deliver all children their
rights.
So when you monitor government’s budgeting for children, it is worthwhile to investigate whether
government has a future plan for the delivery of each programme and right. You could also make
some suggestions about whether government’s plan seems adequate in light of the nature of the
service delivery problems in the programme, the available resources and the need for services.
Speak to the relevant government officials and consult the relevant department’s documentation to
establish what future plans are in place to give effect to the child right you are studying. In assessing
the plans in question, the following pointers may direct your inquiry:
• Does the plan cover all the factors uncovered in the analysis as obstacles to universal access to
the programme’s services and the universal realisation of the child right?
• Does the plan look towards making all children eligible for programmes that deliver services to
give effect to the right in future? And, if not, you might argue that this is inadequate, given the
obligation on government to put in place and finance programmes to deliver the right to all
children. You might also note the amounts allocated to other priorities in the budget (such as
defence).
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Hofbauer, H and Lara, G. 2002. Health Care: A Question of Human Rights, Not
Charity. Paper presented at the Exploratory Dialogue on Applied Budget Analysis
as a Tool for the Advancement of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Cuernavaca, Mexico, January 23 – 26.
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Information dissemination
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• If child rights advocates, parliamentarians and other relevant child rights interest groups, such
as the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, have access to the research
findings and use them to criticise government for not fulfilling its obligations and highlight
where reforms are needed; and
• If government officials read and use the relevant research findings to improve planning,
programme development, budgeting, recording of budget data and programme
implementation.
This highlights the crucial need for a good information dissemination strategy to be built into the
research activities of a child budget study that aims to advance child rights. It also draws attention to
the following key target groups for information dissemination:
• Government officials (including policy makers, people responsible for budgeting and
service delivery in the child rights programmes dealt with in the study, and people that have
influence over the resource allocation processes of government’s annual budgeting).
• Child rights advocates (particularly those campaigning for one or more of the rights
analysed in the research).
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In addition to targeting the four categories of people listed above, research findings can also be
disseminated widely - in accessible formats - within the public domain and to children. Researchers
and research organisations working in the areas of child poverty, children and human rights, are also
likely to have an interest in your findings.
The most common and effective information packaging and dissemination methods for
disseminating this type of research can be classified into three main categories:
The advantage of this method is that it makes it easy for people interested in the research study to
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gain comprehensive information on the findings of the research, as well as insight into how they
were generated. The primary disadvantage of this method is that it takes some time for readers to
digest the contents of an entire book. This may undermine the extent to which the results of the
research are read and used. Another is that the style of writing and argument in a book may be too
academic for some segments of the target audience. To address these limitations, you might
consider also releasing a shorter, simpler ‘popular version’ of the book.
Writing and distributing short papers that highlight key research findings
Another option is to disseminate the key findings of your research by writing and distributing short
papers. For example, the CBU usually packages its large annual or biannual research studies that
monitor government’s budgeting for children in the form of books (and popular versions thereof).
However in addition to this, the CBU writes and distributes short papers - called budget briefs and
child poverty monitors – summarising the main findings of the research put forward in the book.
These short papers are made available in hardcopy and electronic form.
Newspaper articles
Writing newspaper articles can be very effective in spreading information on government’s
obligations to budget for child rights, the child poverty situation and the extent to which
government is fulfilling its obligations. Newspaper articles cannot be too lengthy. This medium is
particularly useful to communicate key findings, especially if well-timed, to a large number of
people.
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• Events such as workshops, conferences and meetings usually involve a smaller number of
people in a setting where you are able to select, explain and discuss your research findings. This
makes it easy to concentrate on disseminating key findings from the research that are
particularly important to support advocacy work or put forth to inform government planning.
For example, if you know who will attend the event from the child rights advocacy sector, you
can identify and concentrate on any findings that are particularly relevant to a child rights
advocacy campaign that is currently being planned or run. Or your research may have generated
information on types of problems undermining the spending of funds allocated to a child social
assistance programme. In this instance, a meeting with a group of government officials
responsible for the policy and implementation of the programme will create an appropriate
forum to highlight key points and explain your findings in a way that is conducive to problem-
solving.
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disseminate your findings after the research has been completed. On the other hand though, you
may want to time the release of your research findings to make sure they have maximum impact.
The questions and examples below may help you to plan the most effective time to disseminate your
research to different segments of your target audience.
• The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child will be interested in research
findings on the budget allocations and other measures government has taken (and plans to take)
to implement its child rights obligations when it is set to review this performance. This takes
place every five years.
• Parliamentarians will be most interested in this type of information in the second stage of the
budget cycle. This is when the budget plan may be debated, altered, and approved by the
legislative branch of government.
Are there any days of the year that are special days for human rights and/or
children’s issues?
On such days, the media will be eager to give room to research findings on the child poverty
situation and on government’s budgeting for child rights. For example:
• A good day to distribute research findings on government programmes and budget allocations
for child rights is on the day after the Budget has been tabled in parliament.
• It may also be useful to time the release of some of your research findings to coincide with
international children’s day, or a national equivalent.
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REFERENCES
ACESS. 2002. Children Speak Out on Poverty: Report on the ACESS Child Participation
Process. Johannesburg: Soul City.
HICKEY, A & STREAK, J. 2001. ‘Child Poverty in South Africa – How bad is it? in Budget
Brief. Cape Town: Idasa Budget Information Services. Available on the Idasa Budget
Information Service Website: http://www.idasa.org.za/bis/
NATIONAL TREASURY. 2002. Medium Term Budget Policy Statement. Pretoria: Government
Printer.
SCHICK, A. 1998. A Contemporary Approach to Public Expenditure Management, Washington
D. C: World Bank Institute.
SHAPIRO, I. 2002. A Guide to Budget Work for NGOs. Washington: The International Budget
Project.
SHULTZ, J. 2002. Promises to Keep - Using Public Budgets as a Tool to Advance Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights: A Conference Report. Mexico City: Ford Foundation and
Fundar.
STREAK, J & WEHNER, J. 2002. Budgeting for socio-economic rights in South Africa: The
case of the child support grant programme. Written for the Applied Fiscal Research Centre
(AFReC) at the University of Cape Town. Available from judith@idasact.org.za
UNITED NATIONS. 1989. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Available from the internet at
http://www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm
VAN BUEREN, G. 1999. ‘Alleviating Poverty through the Constitutional Court’, in South
African Journal of Human Rights. Vol 15, pp 52-74.
WILDEMAN, R. 2002. ‘Reviewing Provincial Budgets 2002’, in Budget Brief. No 102.
Available on the Idasa Budget Information Service Website: http://www.idasa.org.za/bis/
WORLD BANK. 1990. World Development Report: The State in a Changing World. New York:
Oxford University Press.
WORLD BANK. 2001. World Development Report 2000/01: Attacking Poverty. New York:
Oxford University Press. Or, online at http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty
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Appendix 1
Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
The first example is the CBU’s 2003 study on government’s budgeting in relation to four of the five
socio-economic rights given only or primarily to children in the South African Constitution. These
are the child’s right to basic education, to social services, basic health services and basic nutrition.
The study gives equal attention to government’s programme design, budget allocations and
programme implementation in relation to each right. It also provides updated information on
government’s obligations to take measures to deliver child socio-economic rights and on the child
poverty situation in South Africa.
The second and third examples are concerned with government’s actions to protect the well-being
of children who have been sexually or physically abused and come into contact with the criminal
justice system. One of these, completed in 2002, examines the Sexual Offences Court (SOC)
Programme, put in place by government in 1993. The study did aim to shed light on budget
allocations to the SOC programme. However, its main focus was on highlighting problems that
need to be addressed in order to improve the effectiveness of these courts in protecting child victims.
The third study investigates the implementation of the Protocol for Child Abuse and Neglect, a set
of guidelines for different role-players to improve the care of child victims as they go through the
criminal justice system. This study focuses on programme implementation rather than on budget
allocations and programme design in relation to child rights obligations.
The summaries in this appendix provide an overview of the research aims, research questions and
research methods of each study. The diverse examples illustrate that there are many different kinds
of research studies that can be classified as projects monitoring budgets for children to advance
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child rights. It is clear that child rights are inter-dependent: the realisation (or non-realisation) of
one right impacts on others and vice versa. It is also evident that governments’ interventions –
through planning, budgeting and programme implementation – all affect the extent to which child
rights are brought to fruition. So it would be desirable – in an ideal world – to analyse government’s
programme design, budget allocations and programme implementation for all child rights in every
study. However, resource and capacity constraints often mean that this is simply not possible. The
examples given in this section of the guide show how some research teams may choose to focus on
one right and programme and to emphasise programme implementation in the analysis. Other
studies may try to shed light on government programme design, budget allocations and programme
implementation for a range of different rights.
EXAMPLE 1
In 2002 the CBU began preparing for a research study on the measures government has put in place
to deliver four of the five rights that are given only or primarily to children in the South African
Constitution. The focus of the study is on programme conceptualisation and implementation
(including budget allocations and spending). The Constitution gives children five basic socio-
economic rights in section 28(1c) and 29(1a):
• Section 28(1)(c) says that every child has the right ‘to basic nutrition, shelter, basic health care
services and social services’
• Section 29(1)(a) states that everyone has the right ‘to a basic education’.
The research study monitors government’s programming and budgeting measures to give effect to
these rights, with the exception of the right to shelter.
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Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
• to generate information – in the light of the child poverty situation and government’s
constitutional obligations to advance child rights – about the programmes government has put
in place to give effect to the rights outlined above, with reference to both programme design and
implementation (including budget allocations); and
• to ensure that the information generated by the research provides a tool to advance child socio-
economic rights.
The study does not set out to assess whether government has actually been fulfilling its
constitutional obligations (which is the task of the Constitutional Court). However, the information
it generates helps to shed light on where it appears as if programme design, budget allocations and
programme implementation are incongruent with the obligations on government to deliver the
rights.
The second objective of the study highlights that an effective dissemination strategy is crucial to the
success of the project. After the research has been completed, the CBU plans to publish its findings
in a book format and to disseminate its findings broadly in the public domain through newspaper
articles, electronic media and radio interviews. The research results will also be communicated to a
more specific target audience through workshops and direct correspondence. This audience will
include policy makers, government officials (involved in implementing programmes, designing
child policies or allocating public resources), non-governmental organisations advocating for child
socio-economic rights and parliamentarians.
• providing policy makers and government officials with information that they will find useful for
improving the design and implementation of programmes aimed at giving effect to child socio-
economic rights; and
• providing information to advocacy organisations and parliamentarians that will add legitimacy
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and weight to calls for better implementation and extension of programmes to realise child
socio-economic rights.
The potential of the study to impact on the advancement of child rights ultimately depends on the
extent to which the information it generates can successfully prompt government into improving its
programme design and implementation (including budget allocations and spending) for child
rights.
• How can information from children be used to shed light on government’s measures to deliver
child rights?
• What time and capacity constraints impact on the scope of the study?
Looking at the socio-economic rights given to children in sections 28(1)(c) and 29(1)(a) of the
Constitution, it is difficult to establish exactly what obligations these place on government in terms
of designing and implementing programmes that give effect to children’s socio-economic rights.
Even though the Constitutional Court has heard a number of cases relating to government’s
fulfilment of its socio-economic rights obligations, it has thus far not taken a decision based on the
socio-economic rights given in sections 28(1)(c) and 29(1)(a). Pending Constitutional Court
clarification, our understanding of the state’s obligations is based on the opinion of legal experts –
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Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
who themselves do not agree on all aspects of the question. The interpretation of the state’s
obligations applied in this study should thus be understood as a provisional and tentative one. This
interpretation is informed by the dominant view emerging from expert opinion, and is summarised
in Box A (which appears at the end of this example).
Research areas
The research covers the following three focus areas:
• Child socio-economic rights and state obligations in the Constitution (focusing on the rights
given in sections 28 and 29), how government is responding to these obligations and how
government’s programming and budgeting response can be monitored.
The main vehicle for recording the research findings is a book, which is structured in the following way:
• A chapter that:
gives a broad overview of child rights and state obligations to deliver them, focusing on the
rights given specifically to children in sections 28(1)(c) and 29(1)(a);
describes the development strategy government has adopted to deliver these rights; and
• A chapter that provides information on the extent and regional distribution of income child poverty and
draws on children’s own views about the non-realisation of child socio-economic rights.
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• A chapter that analyses government’s programme design, budget allocations and programme
implementation for the child’s right to basic nutrition.
• A chapter that analyses government’s programme design, budget allocations and programme
implementation for the child’s right to basic health services.
• A chapter that analyses government’s programme design, budget allocations and programme
implementation for the child’s right to social services.1
• A chapter that analyses government’s programme design, budget allocations and programme
implementation for the child’s right to basic education.
• A chapter that concludes the study by pulling together all the findings on government’s
programming and budget allocations for the child’s basic socio-economic rights and makes
recommendations.
The research questions and methods of the study (by focus area)
• What child socio-economic rights and corresponding state obligations are contained in the
Constitution, particularly the rights and obligations relating to sections 28(1)(c) and 29(1)(a)?
• What development strategy has government adopted in response to its obligations to deliver
child socio-economic rights, and what has been the outcome?
• Based on an understanding of the above, what useful, rigorous and practical set of research
questions can be asked to monitor government’s programming, budgeting and service delivery
for child socio-economic rights?
Many secondary sources are used for this section of the research. It draws heavily from the expert
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1 In the analysis of government’s measures to give effect out by Liebenberg (personal correspondence), whether
to this right, it is assumed that the right includes the or not the right to social services given in section
right to social assistance and focuses on programmes to 28(1)(c) includes social assistance has not been
give effect to the latter. However, as has been pointed clarified.
Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
legal and economic opinion provided in Creamer’s (2002) study, The impact of South Africa’s evolving
jurisprudence on children’s socio-economic rights on budget analysis, as well as from government policy and
programme documents. Information on government’s response also derives from interviews with
government officials who have knowledge of the over-arching development strategy and
government’s interventions for child rights delivery.
Research area 2: The child poverty situation and children’s views about the
provision of services and government priorities
The second part of the research addresses the following questions:
• What is the child poverty situation – as indicated by absolute income measures of child poverty
– in South Africa’s nine provinces?
• What are poor children’s experiences of government’s programming and budget initiatives to
fulfil their basic socio-economic rights and what do poor children think government should
prioritise in its spending?
To address the first question, the study uses measurements of child poverty rates and provincial child
poverty shares based on Woolard’s analysis of Statistics South Africa’s 1999 October Household
Survey (OHS) data and 2000 Income and Expenditure Household data.
Focus groups with children are used to address the questions relating to children’s experiences of
their socio-economic rights and government’s interventions that aim to realise these rights. The
focus group workshops include children that are particularly vulnerable and hence represent those
that the state is obliged to prioritise in budgeting for and delivering basic socio-economic rights.
The four focus groups chosen to inform the study are:
• A group of children living in a very poor and rural district , Msinga in KwaZulu-Natal;
• A group of children whose parents are working on farms outside Cape Town; and
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• Second, identify which government programmes are being used as instruments for the
achievement of these goals.
More specifically, each chapter pursues this sequence by applying the following steps:
• Step 1:
1 Investigation into the meaning and scope of the right;
• Step 2:
2 Identification and description of the key programmes in place to advance this right,
focusing on the services the programme aims to provide, the beneficiaries it aims to reach and
government’s time-schedule for rolling out services;
• Step 3:
3 Enquiry into the sufficiency of some of the key programmes relevant to the right in
question, by asking and answering the following questions about programme conceptualisation
and implementation:
Is the conceptualisation of the programme such that all children in need are targeted
beneficiaries, the most vulnerable children are specifically targeted and services are to be
rolled out as quickly as administrative capacity is able to facilitate?
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How much has government budgeted for the programme (annually) since programme
inception and what are the budgeted and estimated allocations for the MTEF period 2003/
04 to 2005/06?
What percentage of total expenditure budgeted for in the budget has flowed to the
programme on a yearly basis since programme inception and over the MTEF period 2003/
04 to 2005/06?
Have funds allocated to the programme been spent or has there been wastage in the
programme due to non-spending of budgets?
Is programme implementation such that services are being rolled out as quickly as possible
to all children in need, particularly those whose needs are most urgent?
What is government doing to overcome these problems and what recommendations should
be made about how it should adjust its planned measures?
These rights are coupled with particular obligations imposed on the state. In Section 7(2),
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the Constitution obliges the state to “respect, protect, promote and fulfil” constitutional
rights. The obligations on the state to deliver the socio-economic rights of children in
section 28, and the right of everyone to basic education in section 29, are unqualified.
There are internal limitations attached to all other socio-economic rights. For instance,
everyone’s right of access to health care, food, water and social security in section 27 is
combined with the obligation that “the state must take reasonable legislative and other
measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of
these rights”. In meeting these obligations, the government is bound by the equality
clause in section 9 of the Constitution, which prohibits discrimination in terms of race,
gender, age, disability and other grounds.
The precise nature of the obligations on the state to deliver these rights is open to
interpretation. Moreover, this is a key area of constitutional interpretation that is evolving over
time through a process of dialogue in society, with the Constitutional Court playing a crucial
role. To date the Constitutional Court has focused on interpreting the scope and content of the
rights given to everyone in the Constitution, and not on those given only or specifically to
children in sections 28(1)(c) and 29(1)(a). Pending further clarity from the Constitutional
Court, the CBU commissioned a study to provide expert legal opinion on the emerging
interpretation of the state’s obligations to deliver socio-economic rights. The ensuing report by
Creamer (2002) is titled The impact of SA’s evolving jurisprudence on children’s socio-economic rights
on budget analysis. Read together with other research on the topic, the emerging interpretation of
government’s constitutional obligations to deliver socio-economic rights can be summarised as
follows.
• First, the Constitution does not prescribe how much of the budget must be set aside for
socio-economic rights programmes or what programmes must be used. However, it does
oblige government to put in place programmes to give effect to each of the socio-economic
rights in the Constitution and set aside a sustainable portion of its budget for these
programmes.
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Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
• Second, the programmes have to comply with a set of requirements relating to programme
design and implementation. Moreover, to review whether a programme complies with the
constitutional requirements, the focus in a court of law will be on its ‘reasonableness’.
Budlender and Creamer (2002) summarise the test of reasonableness emerging from
jurisprudence as follows:
The programme must be reasonable both in its conception and in its implementation;
It must make appropriate provision for attention to crises, and to short-, medium- and
long-term needs;
It must not leave out of account the degree and extent to which a right has not yet been
realised. Those whose needs are most urgent must not be ignored.
• Third, the test of reasonableness includes a requirement for government to ensure that the
inter-governmental fiscal system generates programme budgets and administrative capacity
sufficient to properly implement socio-economic rights programmes once established. Due
to South Africa’s decentralised system, the national government is responsible for providing
funds to provincial and local governments from nationally collected revenue. These funds
should be sufficient to enable them, in turn, to set aside sufficient funds to implement socio-
economic rights programmes for which they have delivery responsibility. Therefore, the
responsibility to set aside sufficient public finance to implement socio-economic rights
programmes is shared between the relevant spheres of government.
• Fourth, the obligation on government includes the requirement that funding be distributed
to child socio-economic rights programmes, and that these programmes be designed and
implemented in a way that facilitates non-discrimination in access to services and reaching
the most vulnerable.
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• Fifth, jurisprudence has thus far not elaborated much on the affordability constraint, and
how this gives government latitude in meeting its obligations to budget for socio-economic
rights. The Constitutional Court has merely indicated that the availability of resources
defines both the rate and content of the progressive realisation of a right. The
Constitutional Court has thus far not given any clear indication as to how it would asses the
availability of resources, in terms of the allocations to different spheres of government and
macro-economic policies defining the total available envelope.
• Sixth, the Constitution does not prescribe to government any particular rate for the roll-out
of services in socio-economic rights programmes. Nor does the ‘reasonable measures’ test
shed light on this. However, government is required to have a plan in this regard, including
a schedule that sets out the rate at which it plans to expand access over time. The obligation
to ‘progressively realise’ qualified socio-economic rights also obliges government, at the
very least, to expand and broaden access over time with an increasing number as well as a
wider range of people being reached as time progresses. Furthermore, any retrogressive
measures (such as cut backs in programmes delivering socio-economic rights) must be fully
justified by reference to the totality of socio-economic rights and changes to the envelope of
available resources or by putting substitute programmes in place.
• Seventh, legal experts suggest that the unqualified nature of the obligation on the state to
deliver the basic child socio-economic rights set out in s28(1)(c) and S29(1)(a), means that
it has a distinct and heightened level of obligation to deliver these as opposed to other socio-
economic rights (Creamer 2002:17). They propose that this heightened obligation can be
seen to confer a duty on the state to provide the services and goods that give effect to these
rights as a matter of ‘absolute priority’. Furthermore, the scope of the rights is such that the
state is obliged to absolutely prioritise delivering these rights to all children in need and not
only those without family care (Ibid). This heightened obligation to deliver basic child
socio-economic rights implies that the court would apply a higher standard of
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Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
reasonableness in assessing programmes for the advancement of the basic rights of children
(Creamer 2002:27). This would apply to both the speed and scope of the programmes designed
to deliver the basic rights of children in need.
• Finally, as noted in the Grootboom Constitutional Court case (2000), the Constitution
challenges government to build its capacity to deliver services through programmes to deliver
socio-economic rights where lack of capacity is undermining delivery of services to give effect
to these rights.
EXAMPLE 2
In 2001 and 2003, the Children’s Budget Unit embarked on a pilot study to assess the extent to
which the Sexual Offences Court (SOC) Programme is working as planned to protect children who
go through the court system. The SOC programme is one of government’s initiatives to improve
the wellbeing of vulnerable children. It focuses on protecting child victims of sexual crime within
the criminal justice system.
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• to reduce the secondary trauma of the child victim of sexual crime in the criminal court justice
system; and
• to increase the reporting rate of sex crime by providing specialised services to sexually abused
children (and to witnesses).
Secondary trauma is the second level of trauma experienced by a child after the abuse has been
reported. Such trauma is often associated with a criminal justice system that fails to treat victims
with due care, including for example the verbal interrogation of victims or witnesses in court to
recall and describe the details of the crime. The specialised services provided by the SOC depend
on the extent of the trauma experienced by the child victim.
The SOC programme consists of a range of facilities and support services for children who have
been abused and give evidence in court. These include:
• A closed circuit television (CCTV) that is used to link the court and the child complainant. The
aim of this is to enable the child to participate in the court discussion without experiencing the
intimidation of the trial and thereby becoming traumatised again.
• An intermediary that sits with the child during the trial. The role of the intermediary is to
support the child by presenting the court discussion in a more age-appropriate manner.
• A child-friendly waiting room for child witnesses, with age-appropriate décor and toys where
possible.
• A social worker that provides pre- and post-trial counselling to the child and is responsible to
arrange long-term support in co-operation with NGOs providing such services outside the
justice system.
The first SOC was established in 1993 in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court, followed in 1994 by a
second SOC at the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court. The programme is currently being rolled out at a
national level and child-friendly court processes are being introduced in a growing number of courts.
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Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
The Mitchell’s Plain Magistrate’s Court (which does not have a SOC) was used as a control site for
the research study. In processing child abuse matters, this court does not have all the necessary
facilities and support services that the official SOC sites enjoy. The inclusion of a control site was
vital in order to examine the court process for child complainants in the absence of a SOC in
comparison to the services being provided at the Wynberg and Cape Town SOCs.
• to examine whether the SOC programme is functioning as planned and realising its objective of
reducing the secondary trauma of child victims of sexual abuse; and
• to uncover the nature of the problems that need to be overcome and the initiatives needed to
strengthen the capacity of the SOC programme to protect children within the criminal justice
system.
Research questions
In order to realise the research objectives, the following questions framed the enquiry undertaken in
this study:
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• Is the SOC being effective in the sense that it is working well to decrease the level of secondary
trauma experienced by child victims of sexual abuse and resulting in an increased rate of
convictions?
• What are the budget allocations to the child SOC programme and where do they flow from?
• What are the financial and non-financial constraints undermining the effectiveness of the SOC
programme in meeting its objective of reducing secondary trauma experienced by child victims
of abuse? More specifically:
How is staff commitment to the programme and experience in dealing with children who
are sexually abused impacting on the programme?
• What initiatives are needed to improve the extent to which the SOC assists children that have
been abused?
Research methods
The pilot study used two main methods to answer the research questions:
• Desk research
The desk research involved consulting policy documents relating to the SOC, annual reports of the
Department of Justice and documents written by other researchers about the SOC programme and
the suffering of child victims of crime. These documents were consulted to gain an understanding of
what the programme is intended to include and who the key role-players are. The desk research also
provided the necessary background information on the incidence of sexual abuse amongst children
and the rate of conviction of child sexual abusers.
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Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
• Interviews
Individual interviews were conducted with all the role-players involved in the programme,
including:
officials from the Directorate of the Sexual Offences and Community Affairs (SOCA) Unit
magistrates
The Director of the SOCA Unit gave permission for the researchers to conduct interviews at courts
and contributed to the design of the questionnaire. The departmental heads provided guidance on
how the results of the study could be useful to policy-makers. The senior prosecutors made useful
suggestions about relevant people to approach for interviews.
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EXAMPLE 3
These rights imply that government must develop, finance and implement (in a non-discriminatory
way) social programmes to protect children, and in particular those that are vulnerable because they
have been abused. Specifically, government is required to put in place prevention mechanisms and
identification techniques. There is a need for efficient reporting, referral, investigation, treatment
and follow-up services in instances of child maltreatment.
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Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
The scope of the study extends to five districts currently piloting the implementation of the protocol
in four of South Africa’s nine provinces. The provinces included in the study are Limpopo, Western
Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Northern Cape. The provinces and districts were chosen to represent
the typical range of South African settlements, ranging from urban and well developed areas to
poverty stricken and rural communities.
Research objectives
The study aims to shed light on the progress and challenges in the effective implementation of the
protocol. More specifically it aims to uncover the following:
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• The funding flows allocated to the protocol and whether inadequate budget allocations are a
key constraint on effective implementation.
• The level and type of monitoring and evaluation procedures put in place, data capturing and
collection for future reference and analysis.
• The actions needed to improve the protocol and to nationalise the efficiency of services to
ensure that all child victims passing through the criminal justice system don’t experience
secondary trauma.
Research questions
In order to fulfil the objectives above, the following research questions were formulated for the
study:
• What is the level of understanding of the protocol document and how is it being implemented at
a grass-root level?
• What are the budget allocations and expenditures for the implementation of the protocol, where
is this money coming from, and is it enough?
• Does inter-sectoral co-ordination and collaboration exist? If so, to what extent and has it
helped to improve the services rendered? Is there managerial capacity and strong leadership
spearheading the implementation process?
• What data capturing and collection methods have been put in place and when were these first
implemented?
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Examples of CBU research studies aimed at advancing child rights in South Africa
Research methods
To address the research questions and realise the objectives of the study, two main methods have
been used:
• Desk research
Desk research was used to build a thorough understanding of the protocol itself. This process
included the analysis of the original protocol document, as well as the provincial protocol
interpretations (which were adapted to match the provinces’ particular needs). Consideration
was also given to newspaper and journal articles, as well as other source material on multi-
disciplinary management methods deployed in other countries, models of inter-sectoral co-
ordination and collaboration, national statistics and summaries of the current levels of child
abuse and neglect in South Africa.
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Appendix 2 Appendix 2
Child rights accountability refers to the responsibility of government to account for the way it has
taken actions to implement the child rights that are enshrined in the domestic legal framework and
in child rights treaties it has ratified. It is accountable for its actions to fulfil its obligations to
deliver child rights to organisations such as the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the
Child (UNCRC), parliamentarians and to citizens, especially children.
Adjustment estimate/budget
The proposed amendments to the appropriations voted in the main Budget for the year. This is the
mechanism by which government seeks parliamentary approval for spending that differs from the
allocations legislated for in the Budget and the Appropriation Act. More than one adjustment may
be made to the Budget in a fiscal year.
Allocation
Money earmarked for a particular purpose in the Budget. For example, the allocation to the Social
Development Department for social development services (welfare services) in the South African
Budget tabled in February 2003 for the financial year 2003/04 has to be spent on social
development services during the course of 2003/04.
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Definition of key concepts on the budget, economics and child rights
priority and which services and goods should be produced for whom, the most effective
programmes and activities in relation to these objectives are held to be those that will have
maximum impact at least cost.
Basic services
The national minimum standards of services in education, social development, health care, housing
and infrastructure as defined in the Constitution, legislation or government policy.
Budget inputs
Budget inputs refer to the allocations of money to particular uses (for example, programmes) in the
budget. This money is for spending on the production of particular services (in particular
programmes). For example, the budget inputs of the Primary School Nutrition programme in South
Africa in 2002/03 refer to the amount of money allocated to targeted schools for spending on
delivering a morning meal to learners.
Budget outputs
Budget outputs refer to the public services that are provided by government through the use of
budget inputs. For example, the budget outputs in the Child Support Grant programme for the
financial year 2002/03 refer to the number of grants paid to child beneficiaries in 2002/03. Or as
another example, the budget outputs from the Primary School Nutrition programme in 2002/03
would refer to the number of school children fed in the year 2002/03. The level and efficiency of
services produced by budget inputs will of course partly be the product of institutional development
and the process of learning over time.
Budget outcomes
Budget outcomes refer to the ultimate impact on the broader society or economy as the result of
budget allocations to a particular programme (or sector). For example, the ultimate objective of the
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Appendix 2
Primary School Nutrition programme in South Africa is to impact in the form of improving
children’s nutrition and thereby their ability to learn in school. The budget outcome in this
programme would therefore be the change in the nutrition status and learning capability of children
as a result of the programme. When monitoring budgets for children, it is important to think about
performance in terms of the link between budget inputs, budget outputs and outcomes in
programmes targeted at children. What children need is not simply more budget inputs, but better
use of available inputs to produce as many services as possible with as favourable outcomes as
possible.
The budget deficit = Revenue – (Planned expenditure + Borrowing). If revenue is greater than
planned expenditure plus borrowing, there is a budget surplus. If it is less, there is a deficit. If it is
exactly the same, there is a balanced budget.
Child rights
Child rights are child-specific human rights standards set by international and regional human
rights treaties and domestic law. They entitle children to claim certain things that will allow them to
live with dignity and enjoy freedom from both want and fear. The rights place an obligation on
governments to protect and promote the development of children. The ultimate objective of child
rights is to protect children from actions that undermine their dignity and to promote actions that
ensure they have a decent quality of life.
There are three, inter-dependent, categories of child rights: civil and political rights, socio-
economic and cultural rights. Socio-economic rights include those relating health care, education,
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Definition of key concepts on the budget, economics and child rights
minimum income, nutrition and shelter. These rights are aimed at meeting children’s basic needs.
Civil and political child rights are rights that limit physical and legal abuse by governments (and
other parties) against children. They entitle children to be free from feeling physically threatened
and abused by the political system, law or another person. Examples include the child’s right to life,
to be registered after birth and to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting
the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body. Cultural child rights are
rights that are aimed at protecting and promoting the rights of marginalised groups.
The rights of children are legally defined in international human rights treaties, such as the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, regional human rights treaties, such as the African
Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child (AC) and country-specific legislation
(including constitutions).
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Appendix 2
Typical taxes (and hence primary sources of government revenue) include individual and corporate
income taxes, payroll taxes, value-added taxes, sales taxes, levies and excise taxes. User fees are
another source of government revenue. These are paid voluntarily by the public in return for
government-provided services or goods. A tax that increases as a percentage of income as one’s
incomes increases is known as a progressive tax; while a regressive tax is one where a taxpayer pays a
smaller percentage of income in tax as income increases.
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Definition of key concepts on the budget, economics and child rights
The deficit to GDP ratio is an indicator that is often used to shed light on the soundness or
sustainability of a country’s fiscal policy and budget. It expresses the budget deficit (see above) as a
proportion of its GDP. The importance of this indicator is that it summarises the country’s ability
to finance its spending. This is because GDP reflects the country’s capacity to earn income (related
to production of goods and services). There is a debate over exactly what level of budget
deficit:GDP ratio is prudent. However, it is generally accepted that it should not be above 3
percent.
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Appendix 2
term economic growth and employment by increasing government spending and/or reducing taxes
(revenues). The danger of this type of policy is that it may result in increasing debt costs,
particularly if interest rates escalate. A ‘tight’ fiscal policy restrains short-term spending in the
economy by reducing government expenditure or increasing taxes (revenue). Such a policy is often
intended to reduce inflation but may also result from a desire to curtail the accumulation of debt
(and hence future debt service commitments). The government sets and implements fiscal policy
through the budget. Fiscal policy targets refer to the levels that government has set for key fiscal
policy variables such as the deficit to GDP ratio.
Fiscal year
The fiscal year is government’s 12-month accounting period: it frequently does not coincide with
the calendar year. The fiscal year is named after the calendar year in which it ends. In South Africa,
the fiscal year runs from 1 April – 31 March. The budget for the forthcoming fiscal year is
presented towards the end of February. The fiscal year that runs from 1 April 2002 until 31 March
2003 will be called the 2003 fiscal year.
Fiscal management
The management of government revenue and everything that influences it, including debt levels and
sources and levels of tax revenue.
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Definition of key concepts on the budget, economics and child rights
• budget preparation, execution, and reporting should be undertaken in an open manner; and
In addition, as the Guide to Applied Budget Analysis for NGOs (Shapiro 2001:115) points out,
“transparency is more meaningful if it is accompanied by participation in the budget process by civil
society and legislatures”. The International Budget Project, Idasa and other NGOs have been
developing standards that integrate the objectives of transparency and participation.
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Nominal values
These are monetary values in terms of the purchasing power of the day (at current prices). Nominal
values do not take into account the effect of inflation on the real value of money. Government
budgets are presented in nominal terms. In other words, they do not adjust the value of allocations
for inflation.
Performance Budgeting
Broadly speaking, performance budgeting refers to a budget process that integrates information
about the outputs and outcomes (impact) produced by government spending. In its simplest form,
performance budgeting is about placing emphasis on the outcomes and outputs associated with
government’s spending and taking this into account when deciding on the future allocation of
resources. Performance budgeting is often associated with giving managers of government
programmes more flexibility to achieve specific policy goals within a set budget. Promoting
efficiency and effectiveness in the use of public funds is therefore an important ingredient, and in
fact the primary goal, of performance-based budgeting. Developing countries, as well as many
developed countries, often lack the data and other information necessary to fully engage in
performance budgeting. Those countries that do engage in performance budgeting tend to confine
their evaluations of programme performance to measuring progress in terms of budget outputs.
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Definition of key concepts on the budget, economics and child rights
Real values
Monetary real values are values that have been adjusted for inflation and expressed in terms of the
purchasing power of money at a particular time. For example, the real value of the child support
grant in South Africa for the years 1998-2002, expressed in 1998 prices adjusts the nominal value of
the grant in each year downwards to take into account the devaluing impact of inflation since 1998.
The real value of a future allocation is usually smaller than the nominal amount (unless of course
there is deflation).
State parties have to make a report to the committee within two years of ratification and thereafter,
every five years. The committee encourages ‘shadow reports’ from civil society. After considering
the government’s report, the committee draws up a list of questions that it sends to government. The
government is asked to provide answers in a written report and is invited to discuss the issues at the
next full plenary session of the committee. The committee then adopts ‘Concluding Observations’
after considering each country’s report and government’s response to the committee’s questions. In
these, the committee highlights positive aspects of the relevant government’s measures, the factors
and difficulties impeding implementation of the Convention, areas of concern and
recommendations for future action.
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