A/HRC/31/33 (a) Giving spending for children greater visibility and priority in all budget and fiscal decision-making, for example, by measuring child-focused public spending and generating and utilizing information on the budget gaps and quality of spending in budget decision-making; States should also introduce a child focus in budget preparation with, for example, budget statements, and a child-specific provision in budget circulars and child budget hearings with parliaments; (b) Safeguarding spending for children during fiscal difficulties and crisis by means of systematic child rights impact assessments, and investing in mechanisms to take into account any potentially adverse effects during budget formulation and approval; (c) Ensuring comprehensive, rights-based costing of child-focused programmes so that realistic budget estimates can help to link policy to budget planning; costing, which should be evidence-based, can also assist in undertaking costbenefit analysis of child-focused interventions; (d) Taking concrete actions to raise sufficient resources by mobilizing domestic resources, in particularly through progressive taxation, and where necessary within the framework of international cooperation, including ODA and humanitarian financing, to invest in the realization of the rights of the child. International cooperation is vital to ensure efficient and effective investment in children. Global economic structures have an impact on a State’s fiscal space; the international community must therefore ensure that global governance is transparent and accountable. Global partnerships and cooperation are also needed to tackle illicit financial flows and tax avoidance; (e) Recognizing that local governments have an increasingly important role in both providing services for children and implementing budget allocations. States need to ensure that local authorities have sufficient resources to invest in children, including through the timely disbursement of funding from the national Government on the basis of a fair and predictable national formula for revenue-sharing; in this regard, capacity-building and technical assistance is needed to support government officials and authorities at both the national and local levels in their obligations to invest in the realization of the rights of the child; (f) Acknowledging that children have different needs and capacities at different stages of their life. To budget effectively for children, States must take into consideration the evolving needs of children at different ages and the unique situations and vulnerabilities of different groups of children. Investment in children is in fact more effective when informed by comprehensive, disaggregated and timely information on the situation of children in the State, including in relation to the most vulnerable and deprived; (g) Strengthening public participation, including of children, to ensure that budgets and public spending are responsive to the rights and needs of adults and children and to ensure accountability of States. To facilitate the participation of children in budgetary and other fiscal processes, States should establish child-friendly, meaningful, age-appropriate and safe formal mechanisms and spaces where children, including the most vulnerable, may engage with public officials and other decisionmakers to discuss their concerns and make their recommendations; (h) Recognizing that meaningful participation is only possible when adults and children have access to policy and fiscal information to support their informed engagement with these processes. Such information should be in written form and published in a child-friendly, age-appropriate manner; 16