Using Public Finance for Children (PF4C) analyses can enhance the persuasiveness of advocacy for child protection, and contribute to better plans and budgets for scaling-up systems and implementing services. Child protection is complex, which complicates PF4C-type analyses. UNICEF contracted Cornerstone to conduct a global review of the use of PF4C in child protection.
Cornerstone conducted document reviews, key informant interviews, a global UNICEF country office survey, and deep-dive case studies, to explore how UNICEF uses PF4C analyses and interventions for child protection. The purpose was to learn lessons.
Key insights
- Child protection – including the elements of a national child protection system, the continuum of child protection services, and the definition of a child protection workforce – need to be clearly defined so that analyses and advocacy in the child protection space can be more uniform and effective.
- The first step to developing a PF4C strategy for child protection is to acquire a thorough understanding of the government’s institutional and funding arrangements for child protection. Specifically, researchers need to understand the public finance management principles and policies, then adapt the PF4C methods and tools to reflect the context.
- Reforming public finance management systems, building capacity, and persuading governments to properly fund child protection all takes time. Therefore, a long-term, multi-sectoral PF4C strategy for child protection is needed to ensure a systematic approach is maintained over time, and across staff rotations.
- The aim of PF4C work is to influence government decision-making regarding public finance management arrangements and the allocation and use of public funds. It is therefore important to invest a significant amount of time into reaching out to, and meeting with, key decision-makers within the Ministry of Finance, line ministries and agencies.
- It is important to work closely with officials in the Ministry of Finance to build their understanding of child protection issues, and of the methodology used to cost child protection services. This goes a long way towards getting their support for budget bids for child protection.
- In most countries, many line ministries, and sometimes different levels of government, are involved in delivering child protection services. Together, they make up the child protection system. This highlights the need for clear definition of roles, synchronisation of capacity-building across individual system components, and multi-agency coordination in the budget process.
- Costing child protection policy and legislation should take place during the draft stage. This allows for the costing to contribute to discussions and help shape the policy/legislation itself. It also provides a good opportunity to advocate for increased budgets, as role-players are usually paying attention during the drafting process.
- There is a need for targeted advocacy to ensure budgets for child protection are prioritised in the release of funds for spending. In some countries, funds may be allocated to budgets, but this does not mean they are available for spending; the process for managing the in-year release of funds is separate, and child protection is often not seen as a priority during this process. It also highlights the general importance of budget transparency and expenditure tracking.
- It is important to phase-in substantial new allocations to child protection. This allows the relevant ministry and other entities in the sector time to develop coherent plans and set up the systems, processes and services required to spend the additional budgets meaningfully, and to put monitoring mechanisms in place to measure efficiency and effectiveness.