16 Dec 2016
Zimbabwe is a signatory to international and regional human rights instruments thatpromote the realization of child rights. These include the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC). It is critical to note that, the fulfillment of child rights has budgetary implications. In light of this, the National Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (NANGO), with support from Save the Children and UNICEF is implementing the Child Friendly National Budgeting Initiative (CFNBI) that lobbies for the disbursement of adequate resources to expend on child development programmes, in view to enhanced child welfare. Developmental spaces were opened up for children through the Child Parliament (CP), Junior Councils (JC) and Junior School Development Committees (JSDCs) to participate and influence national, local and school level budget processes to make them child sensitive. These initiatives have resulted in the creation of improved child led institutions, policy spaces that are child friendly, and enhanced capacity and awareness of policy makers on child sensitive policies and expenditures. However, the socio-economic challenges faced bychildren still persist chiefly because of the failure by the national budget to support sustainableand progressive child development programmes and projects.
Children through the CP and JC have been engaging policy makers using the Children’s 10 Point Plan, their budget advocacy tool, which outlines children’s national and local budget aspirations. Due to the constrained fiscal space most of these aspirations are not funded and therefore not fulfilled. NANGO is convinced that the level of Investment in education, health and social protection determines how robust the future growth and development prospects of the economy would be. Investment in children forms a strong foundation for sustainable economic growth, human capital and health nation and socially healthy environment that is key to economic development.
NANGO carried out a child sensitive national budget analysis for the period 2012 to 2016.The child budget analysis further exposed the fiscal space constraintthat the country is entangled in. This demonstrates the continued incapacities of the national budget to disburse resources to child related programmes and projects. As such there is a big challenge in promoting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of children in Zimbabwe. There exist a huge variance between budget appropriations and expenditures on child development programmes across all the line ministries with child development mandates.
Allocation and expenditure to the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), and School Feeding Programmes have consistently underperformed. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MPSE), Ministry of Health and Child Care (MHCC) and Ministry of Public Service Labour and Social Welfare (MPSLSW) account for about 31% of national budget. Across the three ministries, budgets dedicated to children services have low budget utilization. In this context, the national budget has over years been reduced to a rhetoric budget, which promises child development initiatives that do notmaterialize. It is critical to note that without national budget expenditure, child rights and welfare will remain a mirage. For the period, 2012 to 2016, the allocation to the MHCC declined by 4.3%. In addition, the proportion of national budget to health did not meet the Abuja Declaration, which states that at least 15% of the national budget should be allocated to health. The allocation to the MPES grew by 14.6%. Cumulatively, the MPSE was allocated approximately US$3.2 billion over a period of five years. However, the bulk of this went to recurrent expenditure, to cover remuneration.
