• A department or agency may
receive additional funding towards
the end of the fiscal year and may
not be able to spend it by yearend due to, for instance, lengthy
procurement procedures.
• Programs may be designed or
structured in such a way as to
make it difficult or impossible for
people eligible for the program to
claim its benefits.
• While funds may be allocated for
a specific program, there may be
reluctance within the government
to see the program realized. Funds
may be disbursed slowly, if at all.
• While a donor may have agreed
to provide funding for specific
sectors, all or some of the funding
may never materialize.
The CESCR has said that funds allocated
for ESC rights must be fully spent. Thus,
under-spending of such funds would
constitute a failure by a government to
comply with its MAR obligations. In such
a case, the government must identify the
reasons for the under-spending and do
its utmost to correct the problems that
lead to it. (See case study on The Use
of Maximum Available Resources: Underexpenditure resulting from barriers to
access and lack of governmental capacity.)
Moving funds between different ESC
rights areas may also raise issues
related to the obligation of progressive
realization. If, for example, funds are
moved from education to health,
this may result in retrogression with
Funds allocated for ESC rights-related
respect to realization of the right to
programs must not be diverted to
education.
other areas
A budget as approved by a legislature
may reflect solid human rights priorities.
However, during the course of a fiscal year
funds in a budget may be moved from one
program or department to another and
occasionally even from one ministry to
another. The MAR obligation means that,
even when it is otherwise legal to move
funds in this way, it is not acceptable if it
involves moving ESC rights-related funds
to pay for non-ESC rights related programs,
goods and services. Similarly, it is not
acceptable to use needed funds that are
allocated to meet core obligations within
an ESC rights-related area to cover nonpriority expenses.