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Now that you have established the costs of your current programme, the next step is to develop a budget. A budget will help you estimate the resources you need for the next year or several years to meet your programme objectives. A budget is a vital management tool that helps you estimate how much you plan to spend so you can compare it with the available financing or resources for your programme. A budget can be short-term (for a specific project), annual (for your programme over 1 year) or long-term (for your programme over several years).

Many immunization programmes are making major changes in the ways they operate. Programme managers are trying to immunize more children, and do it more safely. For example, they are using auto-disable syringes, adopting new vaccines and working to better control diseases such as measles and neonatal tetanus. Strong annual and multi-year planning, together with a budgeting process, is absolutely essential to plan for, monitor and manage these changes - and to be sure that enough money is available to support them.

• Plan and prepare a budget,
  
  
• Design a budget that accurately reflects the financial needs of your programme objectives and strategies, including the major budget categories of an immunization programme; and
  
  
• Identify the main methodologies of a comprehensive computer tool that assists with immunization financing.