The Spanish National Committee for UNICEF, coordinator of the Spanish Alliance for Investing in Children, has published the study “Children in budgets. An estimation of investment in child-related policies in Spain and its evolution between 2007 and 2013”, which responds to the fundamental goal of putting forward a proposal to quantify Spain’s public investment in children.
Both the importance of children in public finances and the evolution of the investment between 2007 and 2013 is analysed in order to verify whether and how children are prioritised in the allocation of public resources and what impact has the economic crisis on this investment.
“The public budgets have a key role in implementing child rights in each country, and in the capacity of reducing child poverty and inequality. This study shows the strong cuts in children policies in these years, more than 6,000 € million since 2010, and also it opens an important debate on the need for more monitoring and transparent public accounts in relation to resources for children,” said Gabriel González-Bueno, coordinator of the Spanish Alliance and UNICEF Spain Domestic Policy and Advocacy Officer.
According to study’s results, investment in children’s policies by the Spanish public administration dropped from 12,6% in 2007 to 4% in 2013. Also, while social benefits increased between 2007 and 2013, €6.000 million were cut from Education’s budget.
These and other data are available in UNICEF’s study. (Only in Spanish)