Mayors and provincial goverments shall learn about the budget for social programs in their territory
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© UNICEF Ecuador/2005/Saltos |
QUITO, July, 2007. The compact disk “Budget Indicators for Development” and the newsletter “How social investment is faring” are instruments enabling cantons and provinces to gain access to reliable first-hand information to compare the allocation amounts and types of program for which Ecuadorians are receiving resources from Central Government through the budget’s social spending.
The disk presented by the Grupo Faro and UNICEF is currently helping local governments and social institutions to plan their actions transparently and efficiently.
As for local authorities, when they know what Central Government is allocating to education, health, and social programs, they can plan complementary actions or can act to compensate for deficiencies. For example, the CD will be able to show whether or not a given canton benefits from the coverage of one or more child development programs, and if they do not, the authorities can then request this coverage. In addition, INNFA, for example, can use the CD to find out if the ORI or FODI are offering their services in a given canton so that it can better plan its own intervention in that territory.
The CD’s budget review refers to the social spending by the State’s National Budget and not the transfers that the Central Government is bound by law to make to municipalities (15%, etc). Thanks to this innovative analysis, citizens can compare and assess the amount and quality of social services that their province or canton receives from Central Government and whether the investment in their canton is greater than or less than the average for all provinces and the country as a whole.
Inequity
The CD highlights the differences between cantons in terms of social investment made by the State. It also shows how State funds can be earmarked for sectors that do not necessarily benefit the poorest Ecuadorians.
In Riobamba, for example, the State spends US$16 million to subsidize diesel in this canton. The budget of the Municipality of Riobamba, on the basis of which all of the canton’s needs must be met, however, amounts to US$20.3 million. In the case of Morona, government spending on gas subsidies amounts to US$1million per year, which is equivalent to the entire social investment made by the State in the canton, including the human development subsidy, nutrition, food, and child development programs, FISE, and the housing subsidy.
If the spending on these subsidies, which are now benefiting both rich and poor, were invested in social issues in the same canton, it would exert a much more positive impact and would benefit those who most need it.
Whether the rights of thousands of Ecuadorian children shall be enforced or not depends on whether or not investments are made in social programs that guarantee education, health, and protection for them. With these new instruments for the surveillance of social spending, Grupo Faro and UNICEF hope that local authorities, institutions, and the public shall have a clearer vision of what is currently being done and what must still be done to ensure these investments, which can ultimately be measured in terms of dignity and fulfilled lives.
