Hargeisa 08 October, 2023 {MoFD} – Somaliland’s Ministry of Finance Development and Unicef jointly organized a 3-day seminar on strategic dialogue for senior government officials on public finance for children.
Somaliland Minister of Finance Dr. Saad Ali Shire who spoke at the opening of the seminar said: “The theme of the seminar is making government budget work for children in Somaliland and I asked myself what I can say the seminar that will be a useful takeaway for the participants, on that five questions keep to mind:
- Who is child? Just make sure that we are on the same page on the subject of the discussion of the child. I made brief Google research and intended out that is child, one of under age of 18 so that is cut off if you are above 18 you are adult, and if you are under 18 you are a child.
- Second question is what is the child population in Somaliland?
According to the last Somaliland Somalia population Estimate in 2014 the medium age of 17 years of our population 46 % are under 15 and 75% are under 30 that means half of our people can be count as children and in terms number 2.5 million children, we have 2.5 million children in ourselves in Somaliland.
- The third question is why should invest our children?
Our children are our future, tomorrow is here today how much progress we make tomorrow depends on how much we invest today in our children.
The nation’s physical and mental health will depend on how much we invest our children today. Where will be tomorrow is not mystery at all because we will reap what we sold today.
- The fourth question is how much are we invest in our children from our budget this year?
There are 59 ministries and agencies with the first page in the 2023 budget, there is no single entity that is assign to work exclusively with children, every entity has direct or indirect impact our children. However, those 5 ministries are in the front-line services for children and they are; Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Employment, Ministry of Social and Family affairs, Ministry of Youth and Sports and Ministry of Religion and endowment Affairs.
The total budget for those 5 ministries is about 378 billion shillings, which is about 15% of the total budget, I admit this is a very low ratio ,educational services should be allowed ration about 15% to 20% .The reason why is low in terms of allocation of budget is too fall?
First there is too many pressures on the budget and budget share of the GDP 10% is very low, that is not mean that we should not be invest our future on the contrarily we should be doing more.
5. The last question is; apart from central government where else is invested our children?
The biggest investor in our children is the family, a family of 7 children going to school and within an income of $200 probably spends 20-30% of its budget on children education in terms of school fees, tuition pocket money and transport.
In Somaliland, we have culture looking at the children, an educate them and we see that is a parama importance. International organizations like UNICEF also contribute to investment in our children.
In conclusion we need to increase investment in our children, in our future is pertinent to remain ourselves. Roughly 50% of our school children age are not in school, for every child that goes to school, that is child who is not going to school.
We also need to coordinate investment from public institutions, households, the community and international organizations for maximum impact a thorough study subject will be recommended.
Public Relations & Information
🌐 www.slmof.org
☎9494
Whatsap No: + 252-657729999