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A. Developing Initiatives for Social and Human Action (DISHA), India
"Budget Analysis: A Powerful Tool for Social Activists." M. D. Mistry, DISHA. 1999.
(Recently published in the June 1999 issue of Change Exchange, an advocacy journal for and by Advocacy Institute alumni. The essay was originally written for the Advocacy Learning Initiative (ALI), a project of the Advocacy Institute and Oxfam America. ALI materials will be published in 2000.)"The budget is prepared by a very small group of people in the bureaucracy. Knowing the process breaks this monopoly."
DISHA began to see the need for budget analysis when we lobbied the government to raise the collection rate for 1 million tribal Tendu leaf-plucker women, to regularize land rights for tribal forest land cultivators, and on other issues relating to the general welfare of communities living in the tribal areas of Gujarat state in western India. With each struggle, a realization grew: Unless we had information on the money spent by the national and state governments, it would be difficult to fairly represent the issues of tribal development. Eventually, this realization forced us to learn how to analyze the state budget.
The word "budget" is enough to turn off most social activists. Our group was no exception. Reaction, debate, and studies on national and the state budgets are traditionally the domain of academics and researchers. This has always been alien territory for social activists. We discovered, however, that budget analysis can be a powerful tool for grassroots groups to use in negotiation or confrontation with the government.
Our Experience with Budget Analysis
Our first task was to get a copy of the budget document. This took some time because we did not know where to look. First, we inquired at the finance department of the state government. Even though it is a public document, they refused to give it to us. Next, we learned that the government book depot sells it. However, this sale takes place when the budget discussion is almost over. Eventually, we found the easiest way to get a copy of the proposed budget was from the elected representatives when it is tabled (presented) in the state assembly. This is what we did.
To my surprise, I found the state and district budget documents fascinating. These documents are not just numbers. They speak about the expressed intention of the government, its policies, and its allocation of financial resources, which create the rich and poor regions and groups within the state.
Budget numbers express an enormous volume of information. With eyes trained in budget analysis, one can discover the government's hidden priorities. They may be interested in decreasing poverty, or providing elementary education to children of the poor, drinking water facilities to the villages, or health services in remote areas.
This knowledge, however, takes some time to acquire. When we first saw the budget documents, we were puzzled and overwhelmed. First, we had to classify the data. This was a laborious task. To obtain the kind of information we were seeking, however, we had no alternative. Next, we had to understand the government's accounting system. Then, we had to build our own self-confidence, making certain we were correct in our analysis of the figures. It took some time to eliminate human error, and to create a foolproof system so that we would not repeat our initial mistakes. Finally, we were ready to publish our analysis, "Injustices to the Tribals."
Because ours was the first attempt by any public group to disseminate such an analysis, we thought a lot about what it should contain. We decided to outline the strategy of development, emphasizing how poor people are left out of the budget policies, and how these policies adversely affect the poor. We used the budget figures extensively, showing that we had discovered 172 mathematical errors in the twenty-two budget documents. We also highlighted issues affecting dalits (untouchables), tribals, women, and agricultural laborers.
We gave some thought to how we could make our notes stand out from the piles of the papers that elected members get from the government every day during the budget session. We decided to prepare notes that were short -- six pages long at the most.
We sent our notes to government ministers and bureaucrats, and to the press, academic institutions, and voluntary agencies, and waited for a response.
Reactions to Our Budget Analysis
"Injustices to the Tribals" created a great deal of interest. The newspaper carried box items of our findings that the government had made errors in totaling the figures. This created a very embarrassing situation for the finance minister. The under-secretary came rushing to our office to ask how we found the errors. The ruling party and the bureaucrats were caught unaware; they realized that somebody else was taking keen interest in the budget documents. The opposition parties took full advantage of our notes to press their own causes.
Before each day's discussion, we prepared more notes and handed them out to assembly members. Many of them became addicted to our notes. They were eager to receive them as early as possible to help them formulate their own arguments to create pressure on the government.
Every member in the state assembly found our notes useful in a number of ways:
Our notes stirred discussion on tribal issues. They also created strong positive impressions about us among the various political parties and the people active in public life:
The Value of Budget Analysis to Grassroots Groups
I have found budget analysis to be a very powerful tool. Of course, there are differences between academic analysis and the situation-based analysis of a grassroots group:
Budget analysis has taught us several important lessons:
Budget analysis does have its limitations. We can't find the answers to all the actions of the state by analyzing its budget analysis. Nonetheless, this process can certainly help us understand most of the issues that people are facing.
B. Chronology of IDASA's Budget Project, South Africa
"How and Why We Developed Out Programmes." IDASA/BIS, South Africa, 1999. The chronology covers years 1995 to 1998.
1995
BIS started in 1995 at the same time as the new national parliamentarians faced their first full budget process. Our initial efforts included briefings with each of the national assembly and senate portfolio committees. During these sessions we concentrated on how to read the budget and preparing committees for the budget debate. These briefings formed the basis of our first training packages developed for civil society. These packages have progressed to 1 to 3 day courses on current budgetary issues, providing critical information and tools to intervene.
1996
The South Africa Constitution clearly targets the poor and especially women, children and the disabled as development priorities. The challenge is for the government to spend increasing amounts of its available money on programmes benefiting the poor (for example, to spend less on the army and more on health). In order to track this process, BIS developed a way to compare the government's commitments to the poor with the amount of money allocated to these groups. This method has been used in the Women's Budget, a joint project of the BIS and the Committee on the Status and Quality of Life of Women and CASE. This methodology has also been applied successfully in the South African Children's Budget, produced by BIS in partnership with the Human Resources Trust. By drawing researchers from civil society and providing training, both the Women's and the Children's Budgets ensure a growing pool of budgetary researchers.
The new Constitution also fundamentally changed the roles of national, provincial and local government in South Africa. In order to understand and support the new system, BIS established the Provincial Fiscal Analysis Project. The project engages in research, monitoring and training in order to build a provincial network of budgetary institutions.
1997
Many people expected that the end of apartheid would bring a peace dividend. That is the release of resources from defense to poverty relief. BIS and the Centre for Conflict Resolution established the Southern African Centre for Defense Information. The aim of SACDI is to deepen defense and security debates within civil society, and to assess these needs relative to the need to release resources for socio-economic expenditure.
Budgetary intervention capacity in civil society is premised on a strong social advocacy skills base. In order to strengthen the impact of its budgetary capacity building programmes and to broaden its target audience, the Budget Information Service together with IDASA's Political Information and Monitoring Service initiated the Chapter 2 Network, an advocacy support programme that trains and acts as an information and networking resource for social advocates.
1998
Since 1994 the South African budget system has been subjected to a series of reforms. These reforms are often implemented through framework legislation that has far-reaching implications for how well money is spent. The Budget Information Service formalized its on-going legislation research activities in a legislation monitoring programme that researches and comments on legislative issues around the budget, such as legislation on the money bill amendment powers of the legislatures and treasury control measures.
Anti-poverty initiatives can only be successful if the nature and incidence of both poverty and inequality in a South African context are understood. Whereas a wealth of information is already available across different sectors, it is often difficult to access. Recently the Budget Information Service established a Poverty Information Network: an initiative aimed at making use of Internet technology to build an independent learning information network around poverty. The network will pool, collate and make available quality poverty-related research and contextual information in an easily accessible format to policymakers, researchers, field workers and social advocates in government and civil society, and to the media. Simultaneously it will connect key players in the poverty debate in a series of discussions around poverty, thus sharing capacity and information, engendering consensus and facilitating feedback.
Whereas service delivery in South Africa is constrained by limited resources and low administrative capacity, and is severely impeded by on-going programmes of transformation in the public sector, many government agencies are finding creative ways to deliver more and better services. In 1998 the Budget Information Service has also initiated the Impumelelo Innovations Award Programme. This programme recognizes and awards innovation in government and is aimed at the replication of innovation in other sectors and spheres of government.
Media and Dissemination
The Budget Information Service has built up a stable of dissemination products. Apart from a series of project-specific books and other products, BIS publishes Budget Watch, a bi-monthly newsletter on fiscal and budgetary issues for the technically proficient, and Budget Briefs, faxed news sheets on budget and policy issues aimed at those who do not work with budgets regularly but who want to be updated on broad trends regularly.
In 1998 the Budget Information Service has added two successful community radio series to its outputs: Breaking Ground, on innovative projects in the public sector, and Current Affairs, a weekly actuality programme jointly run with the Political Information and Monitoring Service.
The Next Two Years
In the past our work has concentrated on linking government policies and the amount of money set aside for these policies in the budget. In the next two years, we are going to spend a greater proportion of our time analyzing how well this money is spent and the effect of this expenditure on the quality of life of the poor.
We also aim to build our services to civil society and legislatures by developing the capacity to respond quickly to topical issue and information requests.
You will be able to track this change in our work in the detailed plans of each of our projects. For example, the Children's Budget Project is producing a manual on how to measure the impact of government spending on the quality of life of children. It is preparing a first annual children's budget: a sectoral overview of the impact of government spending on children.
The Provincial Fiscal Analysis Project is busy producing a scorecard to track provincial delivery. It has recently added the Budget Briefs to its stable of products. This product, translating complex policy issues into short, accessible information pieces, is faxed to a network of organizations concerned with the allocation and use of public resources. The Southern African Centre for Defense Information is also researching options to channel existing resource capacity into initiatives to reduce poverty.