A study conducted by Save the Children in Bangladesh shows that only 15% of the total budget (Tk761,785 crore) supported child-focused activities in the 2023-24 fiscal year despite the government’s targeted allocation of 20% as of 2020.
A prosperous future depends on the government’s investment in children’s lives to ensure that they are healthy, able to learn, and protected. The national budget is an important tool to reflect this ambition supporting over 60 million children in Bangladesh, according to a press release.
The government’s investment in the holistic development of children and the promotion of their growth is dependent on how effectively these budgets address some of the most pressing challenges that hinder their development.
During the 2024 election manifesto, the government identified critical areas of health, education, and child-focused interventions to support the most-marginalized groups and implement schemes that address children’s protection and safeguarding.
The leaders of tomorrow must become an investment priority to ensure and build future productive leaders.
Save the Children in Bangladesh commended the government’s progress and mentioned that they look forward to cooperating in accelerating the eighth National Five-Year Plan (8FYP) to its 2024-25 fiscal year.
The press release mentioned: “Our collaboration with the government to monitor child rights issues, promote systemic changes, and reform is central to children’s well-being. Our regular analysis of the national budget implementation and stakeholder consultation have provided a framework for key recommendations to the government and key policymakers.”
Save the Children in Bangladesh Country Director Shumon Sengupta said: “We can support the government in their endeavour in all key areas. We ask the education sector to expand stipend programs for women’s education, promote STEM education, and skills-focused programs, and enhance educational access to the children from poor communities, who often live in hard-to-reach areas.
“We also ask that health insurance be introduced to expand and enhance health interventions and reduce out-of-pocket expenses by low-income communities and improve access to primary and family healthcare and nutrition services provided by the government.”
Most importantly, any initiative is most successful when programming is designed around specific and targeted needs and participation from relevant stakeholders must support initiatives at all levels. With this consideration, we need child-focused interventions that support shelters for street, destitute, and orphan children, address child labour issues, prevent discrimination against girl children, enhance child protection, and expand support to autistic children.
The country director added: “We urge the government to understand climate crisis projects and expand them into existing programs and projects aimed at social and child protection. Focusing on implementing these projects with the aid components will help the government access different global climate funds and better address the impacts of the climate crisis on marginalized children and youth in Bangladesh who are one of the most affected by it.
“The Bonn UN conference is a landmark opportunity for an ‘expert dialogue’ on child marriage and climate change. It must be greater emphasis and understanding of the specific and disproportionate impacts of this crisis on children.”
