Julieta and ACIJ are pushing for greater openness and public participation on tax decisions. She explains, “Incorporating a rights-based approach reveals how the choices governments make while raising public funds is inseparably connected with and will ultimately determine whether they can generate sufficient resources to guarantee equal rights and equitable outcomes for all citizens.”

This approach is gaining public supporters, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic when tax policy has become increasingly important to the government’s ability to respond. Near the end of 2020, the Argentine senate passed a one-time “wealth tax” on the top 0.02% of its wealthiest citizens in attempt to raise $3.5 billion pesos – enough to cover medical supplies, aid to small and medium sized businesses, scholarships for students in need, and other costs related to COVID-19.

“The financial support provided by IBP made it possible to train 10 members of Social Justice and 20 members of other local civil society organizations on budget analysis. Weekly technical support from IBP allowed us not to lose sight of the objective and utilize budget advocacy to contribute towards solving social and economic problems,” Julien said.

“Our whole team was shocked and saddened to discover the lack of working school canteens, especially when we realize that the National Ministry of Education has one of the largest portfolios in the entire budget (17.6 % in 2017),” Julien said. “We wondered how could it be that such an important service for our students’ success was so woefully underfunded?”

Having completed their analysis of the national education budget, Social Justice discovered that the state had very little funding set aside for school canteens and that the facilities are heavily dependent on donations from the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF to operate. There is also weak oversight over school canteens and local community groups such as food cooperatives had little involvement in their management. The system was disproportionately impacting rural students.

“63% of public primary schools are in rural areas, serving more than half of the student population. Poverty levels are higher in rural areas (56% vs 36% in urban areas) and many parents struggle to enroll students and provide additional money for food at noon.” Many rural students attend schools that are far from home. If there is no canteen, they must either take the long trek home to eat or skip lunch. In both scenarios, students end up losing productive class time and performing worse academically. Some students stop attending school altogether.

“As part of its advocacy, Social Justice deemed it crucial to ally itself with certain essential partners.” Julien explained. The organization worked with IBP to strengthen relationships with media partners and connect with the WFP, the UN Development Programme, the Open Government Partnership and UNICEF who have a shared interest in improving school conditions in Cote d’Ivoire and can more easily gain an audience with government leaders on this issue. When COVID-19 made in-person organizing impossible, a grant from IBP allowed Social Justice to purchase a Zoom account to continue their advocacy work by connecting with partners, media, and officials online.

While there is still much work to be done to ensure all students have access to canteens at school, Social Justice now has the skills and allies to tackle this issue.

Feeling isolated and watching the news from her apartment (and now makeshift office) in Guatemala, Lourdes lamented, “sometimes, I wish I didn’t know what I knew about fiscal and public policy.” As governments in Central America scrambled to respond, Lourdes dreaded how the crisis could be exploited for corruption, especially with increased spending and looser controls on public procurement. “I’ve researched enough to know that every cent lost in corruption means the loss of opportunities and rights for the population, in particular for those in a vulnerable situation,” she explained.

ICEFI faced challenges carrying out their work and had to rethink their research and advocacy approaches. They sought to track changes in public spending due to the crisis but found limited transparency around public policy decisions and struggled to be heard by government officials.

Then tragedy struck among their ranks. Lourdes remembers the unexpected death of a beloved colleague and the impact his passing had on everyone at ICEFI. “We suddenly lost part of ICEFI’s soul,” she said, “the best way to honor him was keep doing our work.”

To help her organization navigate these unprecedented challenges, Lourdes leaned on her LDI peers and the skills she learned through the program. “LDI helped keep me sane and find my balance. Talking with other fellows and sharing our experiences, I found we were often in the same boat,” she said.

Credit: International Budget Partnership / LDI fellows convene in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Feb. 2020)

 “When you hold a role of leadership in your organization you need ‘soft skills’ that no one teaches you in university.” Skills such as intra-team communication, public speaking, work-life balance are an essential part of the LDI curricula. “LDI gave me the tools to understand what I need to do to help ICEFI during this difficult period. Little things like asking how colleagues were, keeping in constant communication, and sharing LDI tools with other colleagues in leadership roles helped us see this through.”

As she nears the end of her time in the LDI program, Lourdes reflects, “this has been a rich experience for me. I hope I can continue to translate the things that I learned into my actions at the Institute, and that this will make a difference for the people I work with.”