The call is often heard that more money needs to be spent on social protection, child protection and universal services like education and healthcare. Very often this is true when compared to spending on defence or tax breaks (or loopholes) for big corporations, the spending on these areas lags behind significantly, which leads both to human suffering and bigger expenses to the public purse down the line. However, in a way it is also misleading.
Spending more money on necessary provisions and support services does not automatically solve all problems and make everything alright. In fact, very often it does not, or even does the opposite. The problem is that while at times money is provided – sometimes even quite generously – this often does not come with a clear strategy on how to tackle the problem, capacity building of the people involved or monitoring of whether the money is being used for what it is supposed to be used for.
So, for example, governments are under international pressure to provide inclusive education for all children. Money is found in the budget and given to schools and the schools are now required to accept children with special needs in mainstream classes. With this, the problem is considered solved: all children with special needs are in mainstream schools, so inclusive education is being provided. But is it? In practice, all too often, the reality is that children with special needs are placed in mainstream class rooms with little or no specialised support, without teacher training on how to teach them effectively and manage their presence in the class, and without necessary adaptive equipment or therapies being offered.
The result is that the child essentially is present in a classroom but is not receiving anything that can really be called an education. The child may be disruptive, because her needs are not being met or people around her are not equipped to help her cope with her new surrounding, meaning that the teacher is stressed and overburdened and the other children are not getting the education they should be getting either. And the investment? Well, the school has a nice new coat of paint and digital ‘black boards’.
The next step then tends to be that people start pointing at this situation and saying that inclusive eduction does not and cannot work. And very often the conclusion is drawn that since putting extra money into this did not bring improvement, the money may as well be pulled out and used elsewhere.
This is a specific example, but it is the same when it comes to almost all services that are supposed to support and empower vulnerable children and their families. Money does not inherently fix things, it can be used to improve things if it is invested responsibly. It must be invested wisely, with oversight, to ensure that it leads to quality service provisions. If you provide quality service, you can make a huge difference in the lives of vulnerable children – and save considerable amounts of money down the line – if you only hand over money to have something that has the right label on it… that is going to do more harm than good.
I want to end with two comments from others on this. The President of Eurochild Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said during the Member Days in June that governments need to start investing in children, not just throw money at it. And during the launch of the UNICEF Innocenti’s Report Card on Child Well-Being Dominic Richardson mentioned that the countries performing best were not necessarily the richest ones, they were the ones investing their money in smart ways.
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