Civil Society Demanded Increased Budgetary Allocations for Children

Civil Society Demanded Increased Budgetary Allocations for Children 

Islamabad, December 31, 2012: Child Rights Movement (CRM) a coalition of over 120 NGOs working for promotion and protection of Child Rights in the country demanded Government of Pakistan to increase budgetary allocations for Children during a report launch entitled “National & Provincial Budget Analysis from a Child Rights Perspective”

Delivering welcome remarks Ms Manizeh Bano Exective Director Sahil expressed concerns over poor budgetary allocations for children’s education, health and social welfare. 

Mr  Amer Ejaz Executive Director Center for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) said that  ‘The report reveals that that the total allocation for children for children specific programs has remained around 0.74% of the total public expenditure of the federal government in 2013-14 and less than 1% of GDP during the last four years’. A comparison of the portfolios of federal government and the provinces indicates that the federal government has been spending on children most of her funds in social welfare sector said Mr Ejaz. Whereas the provincial government education of children has the most funds. There is however no uniformity in the patterns of spending and policy making between the federating units. There is very little foreign assistance going into children specific programs. Moreover PSEs like railways, WAPDA and Defense are consuming a considerable amount of funds, leaving very little room for children specific programs he added.

Mr Abdullah Khoso from Save the Children said that ‘In order to deal with the dismal situation of children a number of steps need to be taken; like changes in the accounting and budgeting procedures of the government. UNCRC has strongly recommended that government of Pakistan should start budget tracking of child specific programs.

Dr Irshad Danish member Child Rights Movement said that the federal government needs to ensure that targeted allocations are made in the annual budget for health, education and social protection in accordance with the international conventions on children rights. For instance, UNCRC has recommended that allocation for education and health should be gradually increased to 6% and 15% of GDP respectively said Dr Danish. He added that, at present the allocations stand at 2.5% of GDP for education and 2.5% of GDP for health sector. As such there is a dire need to make affirmative intervention for protection of our children.

Dr Sher Ali, renowned educationist emphasized on implementation of Article 25-A allocating adequate resources to ensure Free and Compulsory education for children aged 5-16 across the country. 

Ms Ayesha Gulalai member National Assembly said that she will take up children related issues during National Assembly Sessions. She praised CRM for conducting children specific budget analysis.  PTI government is concerned over poor state of children in Pakistan said Ms Gulalai. She emphasized that the federal government needs to issue a uniform policy to ensure that the provisions of Article 35 of the constitution of Pakistan regarding “protecting the marriage, the family, the mother and the child” are enforced in all the provincial government. The provisions of this Article can be invoked to issue the policy guideline. Broadly speaking the policy needs to guide the provinces on ensuring that certain of the budget should go towards children specific programs means directly benefiting to children said Ms Gulali.

During launch of the report, CRM members urged government to allocate sufficient resources as per Concluding Observations and Recommendations of UN Committee on the rights of the child made during considering 3rd and 4th State Party Report of Pakistan. The Committee regretted over ‘extremely low’ budgetary allocations for children, which undermines Pakistan’s “prospects of meeting its objectives to gradually raise allocations to education to 5 percent of GDP by 2010 and to increase annually the allocations to the health sector by 16 percent until satisfactory health services and prevention measures are accomplished”.  

The CRM appealed to the Parliamentarians and particularly Speaker of the National Assembly and members of the Senate to urgently look into the pending legislation related to children and take immediate steps towards enactment of the pending bills and urgently establishing a body for the promotion and protection of child rights in the country at the national level.