Gov’t and Stakeholders reminded of sustaining Funding for childcare

Kyegegwa district Woman MP, Flavia Kabahenda has urged the government to increase deliberate, sustained, and coordinated financing for childcare and protection.

 Speaking at the Day of the African Child commemoration in Kamwenge District under the theme: “Planning and Budgeting for Child Care and Protection in Uganda: Progress since 2010”, Kabahenda highlighted the ongoing struggle to allocate adequate resources to this critical sector.

Representing the Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development, Kabahenda emphasized that without significant increases in funding especially direct transfers to child protection departments at both national and local levels, efforts to end violence against children, girls, and women will fall short.

She called for a multi-sectoral approach involving health, education, justice, and local government sectors.

 Kabahenda also stressed the importance of inclusive budgeting that addresses the needs of vulnerable children, including those with disabilities, in refugee settlements, on the streets, or without parental care.

“ Planning should start at conception because at every stage of childhood there will be different intentions and different interventions. So for us to start planning from the budgeting cycle I think is to leave the children behind. Let’s begin with conception, let’s have childbirth registration that is going to feed into the national social protection programme so that at every stage of the child we are tracking. It calls upon us to ensure that our national and local plans and budgets explicitly address children’s needs at every stage of development”-Kabahenda said

Meanwhile UNICEF called on the Government of Uganda, development partners, and civil society to strengthen the social service workforce to ensure all children have access to protection and care.

Speaking on behalf of UNICEF, Susan Birungi emphasized five urgent priorities needed to transform children’s lives, calling them moral imperatives and a shared responsibility.

“The first one is prioritising national rights in national and local budgets. Planning and budgeting must place children at the centre. Many times, we are not seeing this. UNICEF calls for the Government of Uganda to increase funding for child-focused services, both at national district levels, ensuring efficient, equitable use of resources. Second Invest in recruiting, training, deployment of social service workers, especially in underserved districts”-Birungi noted

Birungi also stressed the importance of strong child-focused data systems and called for improved coordination

“Strengthen child-focused data systems to inform planning and improve accountability, enhance multi-sectoral coordination. Child rights and protection is a shared mandate. Strong coordination across government ministries, departments, partners is essential to deliver integrated care and protection services”-Birungi

Comments

comments