Irreverent notes while reviewing budgets 

Who enjoyed preparing a budget submission? Clearly, a budget exercise is nothing to write home about.

But isn’t it our business to be compelling? Don’t we have to convince governments to respect children’s rights, ministers to adopt a policy, donors to give money? Don’t we need to convince the development community that we have to be there? Only few budget submissions make a truly compelling case. How can we expect to convince Government to adjust their budgets, if we can’t even convince ourselves to adjust ours? 

The point is not as dippy as it sounds. It is infinitely more attractive to advocate for and elegantly formulate child friendly policies than to accompany government partners through their national budget process. And even if we continue to sprinkle comparatively tiny amounts of resources onto government operations, the real change is going to come when national budgets get adjusted in accordance with the good policies. And – as we all come to learn – this is the tough part. 

There won’t be any huge shifts or major changes in the next budget. Perhaps this is the nature of the beast, or perhaps things are thought to be going well. With few exceptions, there is little evidence within the submissions that hard choices have been made. Does it mean that any idea is as good as the other? Or do we have more money than good ideas?

(15 August 2003)

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