Child Friendly budgeting key to attainment of children’s rights

Child Friendly Budgeting Initiative (CFBI) is a fairly new concept in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular. The Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children (ZNCWC) adopted the CFBI in 2014 in an effort to ensure that children’s rights are promoted, respected and fulfilled. Since then ZNCWC has partnered with other child rights organizations to train children, policy makers and other CSOs on child friendly budgeting so that they can apply the concept in their programmes and activities. There have been encouraging results from these trainings at all levels starting from the children themselves through the Junior Parliament and Junior Council, child led groups, local council authorities and at national programming. However, child rights advocates still have a lot of work to do to ensure that financial support towards children’s programmes is adequate to address children’s needs.