Children and the Budget in Zambia

This booklet is a joint publication of Save the Children Sweden and the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa). It is based on a study called Zambia’s Commitment to Children’s Rights: The Budget Perspective, which uses a child rights framework to analyse Zambia’s budget allocations and expenditures on programmes affecting children.

This booklet has been prepared with two main target audiences in mind. For those interested in child poverty, children’s rights and other children’s issues, this booklet provides information on Zambia’s budget system and how children are affected by government budgeting; and for those working within government or in Parliament, this booklet helps to explain how budget planning and decisions about public spending impact on the advancement of child rights in Zambia. The aims of the booklet are to: present a fresh way of thinking about Zambia’s commitment to children’s rights; provide information on government’s budget allocations and expenditure on children between 1991 and 2001;  open up more active discussion and debate amongst government (the executive), Parliament and civil society on budgeting for children; and to offer insights and pointers that can assist officials, policy-makers and children’s organisations as they work to realise children’s rights more rapidly.