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[Claudio]

Human Rights Reader 107

 

Always check if the Government is 'putting its money where its mouth is': A guide to using budget analysis to advance human rights. Part 1 of 2

 

1. 'Budget Analysis' is a tool that can be used with surgical effectiveness to protect and promote the enjoyment of human rights in general and economic, social and cultural rights in particular. Beyond any doubt, budget analysis allows assessing transparency and accountability, as well as compliance by governments with their human rights obligations. This, because of the ultimate effects of budgets and budgetary policies on the poor.

 

2. Budget analysis can highlight specific actions that can be taken to remedy governments' non-compliance with respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights principles --something that should be one of a their  highest priorities to begin with. Government budgets should thus reflect those policies --and by looking at the government's revenue allocations one instantly knows. Ergo, the results of budget analysis can be integrated into active advocacy.

 

3. We need to be reminded though that assessing quality of spending requires something other than budget analysis. Although the latter is a powerful value-neutral tool per-se (that allows to pinpoint a government's failure to comply with its rights obligations), a human rights perspective 'grounds' budget analysis by pointing out what is right and what is not: Budget figures do shed light on key human rights issues. 

 

4. Budget analysis cannot thus by itself identify what human rights true priorities ought to be. A human rights framework is needed to help fill the gap. Ultimately, one has to ask: Does the budget reflect an effort towards the progressive achievement of human rights? Does the government use the maximum available resources to comply with human rights provisions of the treaties it has signed? (i.e., does it prioritize the allocation of resources to necessary services? Let us remember that, according to international law, it has to).

 

5. It therefore becomes plenty clear that, when human rights are dismissed by some as being idealistic and unrealistic, a struggle to build a consensus on the fact that certain practices and budgetary allocations violate human rights/dignity must antecede efforts to carry out a human rights-based budget analysis.

 

6. The caveat is that the capacity to enforce human rights depends on the existence of legal provisions protecting rights (national constitutions and laws, as well as international and regional treaties).  Most constitutions contain a range of rights provisions including economic, social and cultural rights provisions. Therefore, because rights are claims against a state, it behooves us to study the national constitution and human rights-related laws.

 

7. Why?, because if a government has ratified human rights treaties, it is obliged to bring its national constitution and laws into line with the provisions of the same treaties.  But, typically, constitutional provisions and laws are stated in brief or vague terms --and, moreover, it does not always follow that governments respect these provisions: and this is where budget analysis comes in!

 

8. Violations of human rights occur under many different guises, not least the one that ensues when governments prioritize foreign debt servicing over social investment and, against that, no law protects individuals vis-a-vis the state. [ Individuals are also not protected against Corporations who are not legally obliged under international law to respect human rights (and have instead come up with 'voluntary codes of conduct'.)].

 

9. A budget is the most important economic policy instrument any government produces. Understanding what governments are actually doing requires understanding what is in the budget. That is why analyzing the extent to which human rights provisions are guaranteed  in practice through the budget is so important. Subjectively, we know that the lack of political power among the poor most often means that state funds are not earmarked for (and/or do not reach) them. Therefore, pro-poor groups influencing the budget can be a powerful tool for advancing human rights. Again here, this is where budget analysis helps since: 

-it measures governments' real commitment, 

-it discovers trends, 

-it unveils the funding allocation implications of policies, 

-it predicts the outcome of the budgetary choices made, 

-it makes the raw numbers tell a story about government priorities, 

-it helps lay out the de-facto choices made by the government, and

-it helps translating dry data of a budget into a compelling case for improved and expanded programs for the poor and the marginalized.

 

10. In many countries, budgets often are a best-guarded secret. If that is the case, one has to begin with a campaign to improve transparency and accountability in budgeting. Not only can such a campaign yield powerful data, but it can also bring a human rights group new and useful allies.

 

11. But beware: Budget analysis cannot and does not determine what should be spent on economic, cultural and social issues benefiting the poor and marginalized; that is a political question; it is also a human rights question!  Budget analysis does not tell how effectively or efficiently the money is spent either or if it is reaching the intended purpose(s) and beneficiaries. Always keep in mind the difference between 'budgeted spending' and 'actual spending'; the latter is what really matters since budgets do not always pan out as planned.

 

12. The population of most countries is actually comprised of claim-holders and 'nothing-holders' (those with no access to any social security benefits). This, because, often

the comprehensive realization of the right to health is directly related to an individual's capacity to contribute to a social security system --any right to health thus depending upon the economic provision and employment of a person. That is why, a quarter or more of the population of most countries has very poor access to health. Not surprisingly then,  governments fall short of ensuring the right to health for everyone; they do not meet their obligations regarding the right to health (and other key social and economic rights obligations). Low income populations are not getting the health care that should be available to them. Often, health spending has seen a downward trend (not necessarily corresponding to a general decrease in public resources, but simply put, resources available are spent elsewhere). The MOH also often underspends in the social program areas under its tutelage and existing programs fail to target the poorest communities. 

 

13. Actually, budget analysis exercises can also discover that:

-more pro-poor spending is done in better-off than in poorer provinces (i.e., on a per-capita basis there is a discrimination against the poorest provinces); 

-the trend in resources allocation for the control and prevention of diseases is declining; 

-the severity of poverty is not taken into account for a more equitable distribution of health resources, i.e., the  Government is not giving preference to the most vulnerable groups; 

-resources allocation to health infrastructures has followed a clear regressive trend; and 

-the Government allocates a disproportionate share of the budget to those employed in the formal sector and discriminates against those informally employed and unemployed.

 

14. All the above will have little practical significance without a strategy to use this analytical information effectively in search of a redressing impact. The ultimate goal of budget analysis to advance human rights is to maximize the use of available resources --and in budgetary terms this means that governments prioritize the allocation of resources to necessary services to guarantee the rights of the neediest population.

(contd.)

 

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City

claudio at hcmc.netnam.vn 

Mostly taken from Dignity Counts: A guide to using budget analysis to advance human rights, Centro de Analisis e Investigacion (FUNDAR), International Budget Project (IBP) and  International Human Rights Internship Program (IHRIP), Mexico, 2004.
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