ONLY 11 per cent of Jamaica’s budgetary allocations between 2003 to 2006 directly benefited its children, according to a study by Dr Michael Witter, a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of the West Indies (UWI).

Dr Witter disclosed his findings of a study titled, What is in the budget for children: Fiscal expenditure on service for children in Jamaica 2003/4-2005/6, during the launch of the Social Investment for Children Initiative (SICI) on Wednesday at the Hilton Hotel in Kingston.

He told the gathering that it was not surprising that a bulk of the expenditure was spent on education services, followed by health services.

“(The allocations came from) 17 per cent of recurrent expenditure, 17 to 20 per cent of capital expenditure, and six to seven as percentage of (as a proportion to) the GDP,” he said, noting that the three-year period was too short to detect trends.

Dr Witter’s findings formed the basis for the formation of the SICI, which is aimed at building capacity to ensure that social investments are consistent with agreed national priorities for children.

The study reviewed the allocation of resources used to provide service to and for children over the three-year period. It also examined the challenges faced by children within the current economic context and highlighted governments responsibility in ensuring that specific programmes meet the national and international commitments to Jamaican children.

“In light of a significant share of fiscal resources committed to supplying services to children, the study concludes that more attention should now be paid to the quality of those services and the impact of expenditure, given the resource constraint the Government of Jamaica is likely to face for many years to come,” he said.

One solution, Dr Witter said, would be to reallocate non-debt expenditure to children. However, he did not quantify this allocation.

Meanwhile, Alison Anderson, chief executive officer in the Child Development Agency (CDA) highlighted the importance of including citizens in the budgeting process in order to provide resources for children, through a method referred to as participatory budgeting. This method, Anderson said, was a component of the SICI, and was a policymaking process in which a wide range of stakeholders debate, analyse, prioritise and monitor decisions about public expenditures and investments.

“By creating increased opportunities for the involvement of civil society in decision-making, government can move towards greater societal consensus, support for difficult policy reforms and the maximisation of the impact of social policy,” she said, adding that this method has been successful in other countries such as Brazil and South Africa.

According to Anderson, the planned activities for the first two years of the SICI includes developing a framework and approach for participatory budgeting for Jamaica, informed by international best practices and local realities.

Additionally, she said participatory budgeting would be piloted at the CDA beginning with the 2007/2008 budget. She also noted that sensitisation workshops about the method at a community and national level would be conducted.

“This will be done through workshops beginning with a two-day workshop in May of this year,” Anderson said.

During the function Carol Samuels, head of the Jamaica Coalition for the Rights of the Child, supported a call by 16 year-old Brandon Allwood, a youth advocate and a student at Kingston College, for adults to involve children in the decision-making process, pariculary in matters that affected them.

“Our decisions and plans must translate into decisive action in the best interest of all our children,” Samuels said.

“In setting a climate in which children live, we must reorder our priorities,” she added.