Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) - budget work in education

commonwealth education fund

budget work in education

CEF Budget Work Documentation
In collaboration with Save the Children UK and the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), CEF has documented its experiences in budget tracking work in the following three publications.

A Budget Guide for Civil Society Organisations Working in Education
V. Perry (2009)

Budgets can be complex documents. Many people feel intimidated by budget work, assuming that it requires very technical skills. But budget work can be straightforward. Using basic arithmetic, civil society can use budget information to talk in powerful ways about how public resources are used for education. This guide provides civil society organisations (CSOs) in the education sector with the basic information they need to get started on budget work. Using background information, budget exercises and short illustrative case studies, It introduces core concepts relating to budgets, and discusses ways of analysing them. It also demonstrates how budget work can inform strategic advocacy messages, and bring about change in the education sector. At the end of the guide there is a dictionary of economic and budget terminology and a list of useful reference materials where you can find out more about budget work.

Making the Budget Work for Education: Experiences, Achievements and lessons learned from civil society budget work
M. Claasen (2008)

Over the last decade, budget work, or applied budget analysis, has become increasingly recognised as an important tool for holding governments and non-state actors accountable for their policy commitments, budget allocations and expenditure. Increasingly, CSOs have adopted budget work as a key part of their advocacy and have recognised that the following three democratic principles are essential for the achievement of human development goals: Accountability; Public participation; and Transparency. This report focuses on the work supported by CEF to enable local communities to monitor spending on education at national and local levels. Case studies compiled by Idasa (Institute for Democracy in South Africa) examine work done by CEF partners in Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda.

CEF brief for the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre
CEF partner efforts to combat corruption in education through budget monitoring are discussed in this short paper for the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre of the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI).