Centro de Analisis e Investigacion (FUNDAR), International Budget Project (IBP), International Human Rights Internship Program (IHRIP), ISBN 0-9797799-4-9, 83 pp, 2004. www.internationalbudget.org/themes/ESC/FullReport.pdf
What a jewel of a short book. Here is a book that, I would say, belongs to our ‘Dialectics 101’ armamentarium by reminding us to look at the major contradictions in the neglect to tackle human rights violations the world over. The book is based on a workshop of the same name held in January 2002 in Mexico; a report of the same, entitled “Promises to Keep”, was designed as a resource for those interested in learning more about using public budgets as a tool to advance economic, social and cultural rights. The book actually reminds us to always check if governments are ‘putting their money where their mouth is’; it thus is a very powerful tool to help us all assess a government’s compliance with its rights obligations and for highlighting specific actions that can be taken to remedy non-compliance. To illustrate the contradictions at hand, the book unpretentiously but forcefully brings to the fore the flagrant violations of the right to health through an analysis of the Mexican Government budgets over a four year period.
Dignity Counts (= human rights count) is built around a real life case study in Mexico and it discusses only one right – the right to health.
Early on, we are provided with expert guidance on how to use ‘Budget Analysis’, a tool that can be used with surgical effectiveness to protect and promote the enjoyment of human rights in general and economic, social and cultural rights in particular. Beyond any doubt, the book proves how budget analysis allows assessing transparency and accountability, as well as compliance by governments with their human rights obligations. This, because of the ultimate effects of budgets and budgetary policies on the poor.
Evidence is also given on how budget analysis can highlight specific actions that can be taken to remedy governments’ non-compliance with respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights principles – something that should be one of a their highest priorities to begin with. Government budgets should thus reflect those policies – and by looking at the government’s revenue allocations one instantly knows… Ergo, the results of budget analysis can be integrated into active advocacy.
But the book also ably reminds us that assessing quality of spending requires something other than budget analysis. Although the latter is a powerful value-neutral tool per-se (that allows to pinpoint a government’s failure to comply with its rights obligations), a human rights perspective ‘grounds’ budget analysis by pointing out what is right and what is not: Budget figures do shed light on key human rights issues.
Budget analysis cannot thus by itself identify what human rights true priorities ought to be. A human rights framework (well characterized in the book) is needed to help fill the gap. Ultimately, one has to ask: Does the budget reflect an effort towards the progressive achievement of human rights? Does the government use the maximum available resources to comply with human rights provisions of the treaties it has signed? (i.e., does it prioritize the allocation of resources to necessary services? Let us remember that, according to international law, it has to).
It therefore becomes plenty clear that, when human rights are dismissed by some as being idealistic and unrealistic, a struggle to build a consensus on the fact that certain practices and budgetary allocations violate human rights/dignity must antecede efforts to carry out a human rights-based budget analysis.
The caveat is that the capacity to enforce human rights depends on the existence of legal provisions protecting rights (national constitutions and laws, as well as international and regional treaties). Most constitutions contain a range of rights provisions including economic, social and cultural rights provisions. Therefore, because rights are claims against a state, it behooves us to study the national constitution and human rights-related laws.
Why?, because if a government has ratified human rights treaties, it is obliged to bring its national constitution and laws into line with the provisions of the same treaties. But, typically, constitutional provisions and laws are stated in brief or vague terms – and, moreover, it does not always follow that governments respect these provisions: and this is where budget analysis comes in!
Violations of human rights occur under many different guises, not least the one that ensues when governments prioritize foreign debt servicing over social investment and, against that, no law protects individuals vis-a-vis the state. [ Individuals are also not protected against Corporations who are not legally obliged under international law to respect human rights (and have instead come up with ‘voluntary codes of conduct’…)].
A budget is the most important economic policy instrument any government produces. Understanding what governments are actually doing requires understanding what is in the budget. That is why analyzing the extent to which human rights provisions are guaranteed in practice through the budget is so important. Subjectively, we know that the lack of political power among the poor most often means that state funds are not earmarked for (and/or do not reach) them. Therefore, pro-poor groups influencing the budget can be a powerful tool for advancing human rights. Again here, this is where budget analysis helps since:
– it measures governments’ real commitment,
– it discovers trends,
– it unveils the funding allocation implications of policies,
– it predicts the outcome of the budgetary choices made,
– it makes the raw numbers tell a story about government priorities,
– it helps lay out the de-facto choices made by the government, and
– it helps translating dry data of a budget into a compelling case for improved and expanded programs for the poor and the marginalized.
In many countries, budgets often are a best-guarded secret. If that is the case, one has to begin with a campaign to improve transparency and accountability in budgeting. Not only can such a campaign yield powerful data, but it can also bring a human rights group new and useful allies.
But beware, budget analysis cannot and does not determine what should be spent on economic, cultural and social issues benefiting the poor and marginalized; that is a political question; it is also a human rights question! Budget analysis does not tell how effectively or efficiently the money is spent either or if it is reaching the intended purpose(s) and beneficiaries. The book further fittingly asks us to keep in mind the difference between ‘budgeted spending’ and ‘actual spending’; the latter is what really matters since budgets do not always pan out as planned.
As regards the case study, the book divides the Mexican population into claim-holders and ‘nothing-holders’ (those with no access to any social security benefits). This, because, in Mexico, the comprehensive realization of the right to health is directly related to an individual’s capacity to contribute to the social security system; any right to health depends upon the economic provision and employment of a person. That is why, a quarter of the population has very poor access to health. Not surprisingly then, the Mexican Government falls short of ensuring the right to health for everyone. It altogether does not meet its obligations regarding the right to health (and other key social and economic rights obligations). Low income Mexicans are not getting the health care that should be available to them; health spending has seen a downward trend (not necessarily corresponding to a general decrease in public resources, but simply put, resources available have been spent elsewhere). The MOH also under-spent in the social program areas under its tutelage and existing programs have failed to target the poorest communities.
Actually, the Mexican budget analysis exercise also discovered that:
– more pro-poor spending is done in better-off than in poorer states (i.e., on a per-capita basis, there is a discrimination against the poorest states);
– the trend in resources allocation for the control and prevention of diseases is declining;
– the severity of poverty is not taken into account for a more equitable distribution of health resources, i.e., the Government is not giving preference to the most vulnerable groups;
– resources allocation to health infrastructures has followed a clear regressive trend; and
– the Government allocates a disproportionate share of the budget to those employed in the formal sector and discriminates against those informally employed and unemployed.
Regarding the last observation, a point the book fails to bring up in more detail, is the fact that general hospitals for the poor are severely under-funded – as opposed to hospitals from the social security system (IMSS) – simply because the latter system is funded by the formal sector workers, their employers and private contributors only; the informal sector is simply left out. This is an additional important aspect of the segmented Mexican health care system.
The rich findings highlighted in the book will have little practical significance without a strategy to use them effectively in search of a redressing impact. In Mexico, FUNDAR has started doing just that. The ultimate goal of budget analysis to advance human rights is to maximize the use of available resources – and in budgetary terms this means that governments prioritize the allocation of resources to necessary services to guarantee the rights of the neediest population.
In closing, it has to be pointed out that the book makes for a short, easy and enjoyable reading (3-4 hours). It is written in clear, accessible language and has good, helpful diagrams, boxes with useful mini-case studies and technical boxes together with an excellent technical human rights glossary and very useful URLs.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
schuftan@gmail.com