A/HRC/28/33 understand and shape national and subnational budget plans, and monitor expenditure to track its correlation with the plans made. D. Accountability: monitoring, evaluation and audit 40. To ensure that budgeted resources reach children on time, Governments should strengthen their public finance management systems and ensure accountability for public resources. Such systems should ensure not only that the money has been spent in the intended manner, but also that it has been used efficiently and effectively to achieve its aim. Corruption and mismanagement deprive children of the right to have access to services essential for their survival and development and, broadly, the enjoyment of their rights. Effective remedies should be put in place to address the mismanagement of public funds. Fighting corruption and reducing waste at all levels of public spending should be a priority for States. 41. Financial oversight should be implemented through a variety of mechanisms, including internal accountability through parliamentarians, government ministries and ombudspersons; external bodies, such as independent human rights institutions; and citizenled social accountability mechanisms, such as social audits, scorecards and participatory budget monitoring involving student councils and children’s parliaments. A supreme audit institution should be established as an independent body to scrutinize the use of public funds. Governments should then submit timely annual accounts to the institution, and engage in peer review mechanisms between and among Governments. International and regional human rights mechanisms, such as the universal periodic review, the special procedures and the treaty bodies can also hold States accountable for investment in children. 42. Adequate budget planning and equitable allocation and spending require adequate data and information and support systems. Governments should collect comprehensive disaggregated data on children from civil registration, vital statistics and other relevant sources that inform planning. Public financial management systems should ensure that information on planned and spent budget on children and excluded and marginalized groups is visible, easily extractable and interpretable. 43. Budget analysis and monitoring must be a sustained endeavour, showing longitudinal results rather than simply a one-time project.30 The information that is produced should be used as the basis for budget planning and formulation in the following years. There should be a continued process of evaluation, considering outputs and outcomes. Child rights-based indicators should be developed and used as benchmarks to evaluate appropriately the effectiveness of programmes, and the public should be able to see comparisons between estimated beneficiaries of interventions and actual outcomes. This should be informed by empirically based statistical analysis and participatory mechanisms allowing children, young people and adults to provide feedback and contribute to the monitoring of service standards. 44. Child-sensitive participatory budget initiatives can benefit from linking children with adult governance structures and public budget accountability mechanisms across all levels, creating networks between and among citizens and civil, economic and political society actors. A collaborative approach between duty-bearers and civil society actors – 30 Enakshi Ganguly Thukral, “Budget for Children”, in Aoife Nolan, Rory O’Connell and Colin Harvey, Human rights and Public Finance: Budgets and the Promotion of Economic and Social Rights (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2013). 11