Child Centric Budget Analysis (CCBA): Ensuring Resource Allocation for a Wholesome Childhood

1. ADVOCACY UPDATES2012/2013 Chathuri Jayasooriyya

2. CHILD CENTRIC BUDGET ANALYSIS (CCBA/BfC) ‘Ensuring Visible and Meaningful Resource Allocation for a Wholesome Childhood’ Child Rights To be a Reality NeedsResourcing

3. The Study – an Overview • 1st CCBA (based on CR indicators) conducted in Sri Lanka in 2011 by CRAN • Technical and financial support by SC • Based on the Concluding Observation no17 adopted for the GoSL in 2010 • The study covered: • Period: 2007-2011 (Budgets of 2009, 2010, 2011) • Sectors: Education, Health & Nutrition, Child Development, Child Protection • Ministries: 19/85

4. The Study – an Overview (cnt’d) • Analysis: • Legal and policy framework • Framework of action • Situational analysis • Budget analysis • Key finding – children are invisible in the State budget • Lack of disaggregated data • Scattered across ministries

5. Advocacy and Lobbying • Initiated in January 2012 through the CCBA Working Committee (3 members) • Slow but steady progress • Importance of an organic process/growth • Main targets – policy makers • 7-step recommendations to MOCD & MOFP • Many challenges! • Advisors, Champions and Supporters • Practitioners, academia, policy makers, parliamentarians • Dr HiranthiWijemanne, CRC Committee Member

6. Objectives • Short term: • Children to be made visible in the State budget by presenting disaggregated data on the allocations and expenditure for children, in terms of the programme activities and the demographics, by 2015. • A separate budget for children (BfC) to be formulated by extracting and collating the allocations and expenditure related to children dispersed across various Ministries and Departments, by 2015. • Long term: • More meaningful resource allocations based on child rights indicators and contextual needs

7. Progress and Achievements • The Launch – 15th June 2013 • Under the patronage of the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs and the Office of the Advisor on Reconciliation to HE the President of Sri Lanka • Financial support by Plan Sri Lanka • Over 100 participants - policy makers, academia, civil society, Media • Brought CRAN a lot of recognition and to the national forefront

9. Advocacy Video http://youtu.be/MM5K_bhxoC4

10. Progress and Achievements (cnt’d) • Formation of the 1st Children’s Caucus in Sri Lanka • Supported by 2 parliamentarians • To coordinate progs & resource allocations for children among Ministries/dpts • Included as a case study/good practice in the toolkit on following up on COs, being developed by the Child Rights Connect • Inspired other regions/countries

11. Progress and Achievements (cnt’d) • Targeting parliamentary budget debates – 21st Nov: • Series of news and feature articles • Dialogues with high-level policy makers • Awareness raising and engaging with CSOs

12. Future Plans • Stakeholder Approach A 3 pronged strategy: • Advocating with the govt at Ministerial, Provincial, District and Divisional levels. • Civil society engagement (i.e. academia, Media, CSOs) • Community mobilization (including children) • Thematic/Sectoral Approach E.g. Children in alternative care, children with disability, ECCD, juvenile justice, etc

13. Links CCBA Report – e-version http://www.scribd.com/doc/155240167/Child-Centric-Budget-Analysis-CCBAAdvocacy Video http://youtu.be/MM5K_bhxoC4Feature article on Sunday Island (29th Sep 2013) http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=89002

14. CHILD PROTECTION THROUGH CHILD PARTICIPATION (CPCP) ‘Promoting Child Participation through Involving Children in their Own Protection’

15. Background and Rationale • Inspired by Plan ARO training on how to involve children in their own protection • Ambition to do a ‘meaningful’, impactful prog instead of a ‘roll out’ workshop • Pilot initiative • Criteria and considerations: • A School • Urban setting • Adult-child partnership (ambitious?) • Small-scale and targetted/tailored intervention

16. Aim • To promote the meaningful participation of children by involving children in their own protection and in creating a protective, child-friendly environment at school and home through a partnership between children (students) and adults (teachers and parents), with a special emphasis on building positive relationships

17. Overview • Time frame: 6 months (May-Nov 2-13) • Location: Clifton Balika (girls’ school) in Maradana, Colombo District • Target groups: • 8 14-year old girls (Grade 9) • Parents/guardians of the children (only 2) • Principal and a counselling teacher

18. Stakeholders

19. Methodology

20. Approach • Views protection through the lens of relationships • Positive relationships – key factor in a protective environment • Hence focus on improving daily interactions and relationships in children’s lives • Addressing the causal factors instead of focusing solely on ‘abuse’ • Factors that ensure or threaten the protection of children, e.g. communication, emotions, relationships, gender-relations, self-image, etc

21. Method • Building life skills to: • Improve personal/social relationships • Manage the above factors effectively • Protect themselves and others by identifying risks and responding skilfully to challenging situations • Based on the 10 life skills listed by WHO, UNICEF and UNESCO, 3 main components: • critical thinking/decision-making skills, • interpersonal/communication skills and • coping and self-management skills • 2-3hr sessions every Sunday • Thematic, e.g. Values and perceptions, emotions, communication, positive relationships, being safe • Protection issues which goes beyond ‘abuse’, e.g. unhealthy body images

22. Tools • Experiential - debates and competitions, role plays and simulations, discussions based on video clips, home work, etc • Inspirations from: • Life Skills: Psychosocial and Life Skills for Adolescent Girls in Urban Ghana (The Population Council 2010) • Journey of Life (REPSSI 2011) • Aunty Stella (TARSC 2006)

23. Outcomes • Considerable improvement in the ability to: • Identify the protection-related concerns at school, home and community • Identify their strengths and capacities as well as rights & responsibilities • Remarkable improvement and positive changes in some of the children • Feedback from self, parents, teachers • Changes in attitudes and perceptions, e.g. ‘love’, corporal punishment • Children shared their learnings with peers & teachers at a prog organized by themselves • Children decided to form a Child Protection Club in the school (for their Grade) • Development of a new methodology

25. Challenges • Challenges of volunteerism! • Entirely managed by 3 volunteers – time, energy, resources, commitment • Required a lot of preparatory time • Lack of participation of children, parents, teachers • Lack of interest, practical issues, tuition, etc • Difficulty in finding suitable audio-visual material in the local languages • Lack of time and capacity to address some of the issues or provide support

26. Next Steps? Proposals made: • Documenting learnings • Developing a working manual and toolkit • Developing audio-visual material • Replicate in other schools/communities through other orgs/CRAN • There’s great interest and feedback • Support is needed, specially human resources

27. OTHER INITIATIVES • Children Building Bridges – Children’s Forum • Workshop for network strengthening and review, aimed at consensus building and network cohesion • In the process of developing a Procedure Manual, CoC and CPP for CRAN • Various advocacy and capacity building progs at district level, e.g. Providing BCs to children, awareness raising on CRs, training on child participation, etc