Assessing the adequacy of the financial resources available for child protection systems, and the cost of reform of these systems, is a necessary first step to make a sustainable difference to the degree to which this right is realised for children. The purpose of this benchmark is to obtain a comparable measurement of actual expenditure by the state on child protection (CP) across countries, and within countries over time. Benchmarking expenditure across countries in similar circumstances will provide child protection advocates with robust information to analyse the adequacy of expenditure in any one country. At the same time, being able to take snapshots of expenditure within any one country over time allows analysis of the change in resources against policy commitments and needs.
