Impact of Increased Public Education Spending on Growth and Poverty in Uganda: An Integrated Micro-Macro Approach

Abstract

In recent years, UNICEF has increasingly called on the unique and versatile expertise of PEP-affiliated researchers and world-leading experts to assist in its advocacy work, by producing reliable and comprehensive bases of evidence on the situation of children and the impact of various policy options/interventions in favor of child welfare in developing countries. In some cases, UNICEF’s commissions to PEP also involved the development of specific methodologies and tools to be used on a long-term basis as a source of reliable and renewable data on child welfare, either at the national or international levels. This project stems from the desire expressed by UNICEF-Uganda to assess the impact of fiscal policies on the well-being of Ugandan children. From the outset, the authors and representatives of UNICEF-Uganda agreed that the policies to be analyzed should reflect the knowledge and concerns of local experts affiliated with MoFPED, UBOS, EPRC, Development Research and Training, UNDP, World Bank and UNICEF. A meeting was thus held in Kampala in February 2013 to validate the assumptions made by the authors in the development of the methodology, and to determine the scenarios to be studied. The work presented below is thus reflective of the discussions with Ugandan experts. Although the well-being of children depends on multiple factors, the workshop participants agreed that the low quality of education received by children today remains the main concern in order to ensure them greater opportunities for the future, and thus, a better quality of life for their own children.