The government has planned to increase its overall allocation for various aspects of child development in the budget of the coming fiscal year 2021-22 (FY22) as part of its commitment to building a child-friendly society.
The government plans to raise such allocation as investment for the welfare of children is the preeminent way to invest in human development, according to official source.
Ministries concerned have already been instructed to prepare the outlines for allocation of budget for children focusing on some basic issues such as health, nutrition, education and shelter for children and their families, said a finance ministry source.
The instructions came from the meeting of the finance ministry's coordination council held recently with finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in the chair.
"The government thinks that the human development targets can be achieved only when proper concentration is given to children. The number of children in Bangladesh is over 66 million and their advancement is dependent on child-friendly budgets," said the official.
He said priority of the government for increasing child-centric budget is persistent and the government of Prime minister Sheikh Hasina continued to increase allocation for child-centric budget since it formed government first.
In the current fiscal year (FY20) child-centric budget has increased substantially from the previous fiscal year (FY19), he said, adding that in FY20, growth in child budget has been doubled compared to that of the national budget.
"Of the selected 15 ministries’ budget has increased by 11.8 percent in FY20 compared to that of FY19 budget," the official added.
According to the finance ministry, the first child budget report was prepared in FY 2015-16 taking five ministries having important activities pertaining to child rights. The number of ministries has been gradually increased to 7, 13 and 15 respectively in FY 2016-17, FY 2017-18 and FY 2018-19 and 2019-20.
During this period (FY20), amount of child-centric budget has risen to Tk 802 billion from the previous Tk 656 billion with a growth of 22.16 percent.
Child sensitive allocation has gone up to 47.59 percent in FY20 compared to 43.6 percent FY19. Side by side, the government share of child budget has increased to 15.33 percent in FY20 compared to 14.13 percent in FY19.
"What’s most heartening is that the rate of budget allocation in child-centric activities has shot up to 2.78 percent in FY20 from 2.59 percent in FY19," the finance ministry official also said.
While explaining the issues of child-centric budget, the official said the projects, programs, activities that aim to fulfil any of the objectives may be categorized as child-centric: a) basic care, for example health, nutrition, education, shelter etc. for children and their families; b) assistance in reducing poverty and encouraging women empowerment; provide assistance to family members and other care givers to take better care of children; c) work for the welfare of disabled, orphan and street children and d) activities for prevention of child labor and child marriage and programs for creating job and income for care givers.
According to the finance ministry, the ministry-wise allocations for the child-focused activities in FY20 were Tk 239.70 billion for primary and mass education, Tk 62.02 billion for technical and madrasa education division, Tk 223.81 billion for the secondary and higher education division, Tk 24.89 billion for medical education and family welfare division, Tk 94.20 billion for health service division, Tk 16.26 billion for ministry of women and children affairs, Tk 32.85 billion for the ministry of disaster management and relief, Tk 19.81 billion for the ministry of social welfare, Tk 37.73 billion for the local government division, Tk 0.35 billion for the ministry of labour and employment, Tk 43.48 billion for the public security division, Tk 0.94 billion for the ministry of information, Tk 2.01 billion for the ministry of cultural affairs, Tk 3.15 billion for the ministry of youth and sports and Tk 0.77 billion for the law and justice division.