Comments for Open Budgets Blog

Comment on Do school fees block access to education? by Ian

Ian — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:59:32 +0000

I’d agree that it is extremely challenging to pursue access to education and quality education at the same time in the context of limited financial resources.

BUT there if you are willing to sacrifice universal access in the name of quality you are nevertheless on a slippery slope. How much of the population are you willing to deny the right to education in order to get a god quality education for those lucky/wealthy enough to get it. Historically in many societies this line has been drawn very high.

Comment on Do school fees block access to education? by internationalbudget

internationalbudget — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:28:30 +0000

Goodness Andy, I am pretty sure that this post did not deserve the series of accusations and suspicions that you threw at it

Rest assured, the post does not try in any way to defend user fees. Please read it again. The only point that it raises is why more attention is not given to other barriers to quality education.

I am not sure about you, but I believe that African children deserve more than mere access to education. Are you also prepared to talk about the quality of education? Read here to see what happens when you idolize access at the expense of quality. http://www.internationalbudget.org/resources/briefs/brief8.htm

Comment on Do school fees block access to education? by Andy Wynne

Andy Wynne — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:19:18 +0000

I completely agree with Ian!! It is very sad to see the Open Budget Project buying so much of the ideas from the World Bank. Making people pay does not provide quality services and accountability. It just stops the poor using the services. The evidence is clear:

Several Sub-Saharan African countries have abolished primary school fees. In four east African countries, for example, the following dramatic increase in primary school enrolment occurred during the first year after the abolition of tuition fees:

1994 Malawi 51%
1996 Uganda 67%
2001 Tanzania 49%
2002 Kenya 22% (Burnett and Kattan 2004; Sperling 2005)

Of course we also need better services, but with fees the poor are clearly excluded.

We need to tax the rich and provide free and high quality services to the poor. This is how we can eradicate poverty. Not by ensuring that there is an invester friendly climate as the World Bank is doing in Lagos (where a third of the children do not go to school).

The Open Budget Project needs to ensure that it does not accept most of the dominant ideas from the World Bank, IMF, OECD etc. Openness is not an end in itself, but a tool to fight for more equal societies. Povery reduction needs wealth re-distribution not user fees.

Comment on Why is your government not more transparent? by MUNEZERO H. Bertrand

MUNEZERO H. Bertrand — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:10:36 +0000

Our government are not transparent just because they are still learning prnciples of good governance. You can`t be transparency if you don`t believe in good governance priciples. Then now our countries are learning, they are still at the beginning. We are from Dictatotrial and military regims where giving account to the citizens had less importance. Now we are adopting Democracy where citizens have a say. It`s written in the constitution and political will is getting manifested. However there is still a long journey to replace tradition gorvernance of Dictorship military leaderhip with good gorvernance principles among our leaders.

Bertrand from Rwanda

Comment on Are the lives of people with HIV more valuable than those of children with pneumonia? by Ravi Duggal

Ravi Duggal — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:50:37 +0000

Just to add one more dimension to the debate. I reiterate what I said in my comment earlier that we should not be debating one disease against the other. That I think is not the issue. The issue is how do we spend resources we have in the best way as well as how do we generate more resources because for the health sector resources are never enough. Countries have achieved good comprehensive healthcare delivery with good outcomes (Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Cuba etc..) with resources as less as 2% of GDP, including HIV care, and countries with even 15% of GDP (USA) think they are short of resources. The question is how we synergise all resources available and use them with both effectiveness and equity in our strategy. This would essentially require that we treat healthcare as a public good and once we do that then these debates do not arise, though constraints may still prevail leading to waiting lists for example.

Another linked issue is how specific diseases, medical procedures etc.. gain ascendancy in policies and agendas. And here we have to confront the pharmaceutical and allied medical services industries which push things which lead to increased profitability for them. With healthcare in most of the developing world not being considered as a public good we tend to fall prey to the Pharma industry’s machinations. Today even the WHO and other UN agencies are have become victims of the pharma industry.