The case for rights-based budgeting and spending in India

Abstract

The National Plan of Action for Children (Ministry of Women and Child Development, 2005) in India contained commitments to fulfil the rights of children1 in the areas of survival, development, protection and participation, while also emphasising the need for ‘child budgeting’. The Child Budget, as defined by the Government of India, is the total magnitude of budget outlays on child-specific programmes and schemes. Budgets however, can also serve as tools for advocacy, monitoring and participation and thus, facilitate rights-based monitoring and evaluation. This understanding of budgets has the potential to impact the process of budget formulation and execution throughout the institutional framework, from policy design to service delivery. Major challenges for budgets to serve rights-based monitoring and evaluation include ineffective public dissemination of budget information and a lack of understanding of the process of budget formulation and execution among stakeholder groups (children, civil society). In India, the participation of stakeholder groups in the design, implementation and monitoring processes of Child Budget formulation and execution has been minimal. This is pertinent in light of the recommendation for India by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, to develop rights-based initiatives to public provision of goods and services, including those designed to assist disadvantaged social groups to effectively make claims on public services.