Trebled costs of conflicts on public investment in children in selected African states

Conflict, of whatever form, impacts disproportionately on children. Horrific stories have been told – over and over again - of how children are raped, abandoned, injured, forced to migrate to far-away places, recruited into... [ view full abstract ]

Conflict, of whatever form, impacts disproportionately on children. Horrific stories have been told – over and over again - of how children are raped, abandoned, injured, forced to migrate to far-away places, recruited into armed groups and separated from their parents due to conflict. This is only one side of the story. There is another side, which unfortunately has not received an equal measure of attention in policy and scholarly works, that is: implications of conflict on public investment on specific segments of the populace. This gap in literature motivated this critical examination of the costs of conflict on public investment in children in selected states in post-colonial Africa. Guided by public financial management theory and practice, the central argument of the paper is that conflict leads to the triple crisis of ‘depressed government revenue’, ‘retrogressed public expenditures on children’ and ‘disrespect of public expenditure standards and procedures’. Together, these three elements lead to denial of children’s rights. Although there are different types of conflict this paper focuses on armed conflict.
The aim of the paper is to provide an empirical expose of direct and opportunity costs of conflict on public investment in children in selected Africa states. Public investment in children is defined in this paper as public spending of available domestic and international resources on sectors and programmes that directly and indirectly contribute to the implementation of children’s rights. The paper relies heavily on secondary data including information on humanitarian financing from the Financial Tracking Service, drawn from Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP), Flash Appeals as well as budget documents at national level.