Gender Budgeting
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About this website:
This section of the Women'snet website aims to give you an introduction to gender budgeting, and provides some links for more information. We focus on resources for the Southern African region, and we have arranged content into resources; tools; training materials and institutions. We hope that by using this website, you will have access to information in order to intervene in budgeting processes.
What is Gender Budgeting?
Gender budgeting is a method of examining a government budget to determine how it impacts on women and men, girls and boys of different social and economic (and racial) groups. (Winnie Byanyima MP, Uganda)
‘Gender-sensitive budgets’, ‘gender budgets’, and ‘women’s budgets’ refer to a variety of processes and tools aimed at facilitating an assessment of the gendered impacts of government budgets. In the evolution of these exercises, the focus has been on auditing government budgets for their impact on women and girls. This has meant that, to date, the term ‘women’s budget’ has gained widest use. Recently, however, these budget exercises have begun using gender as a category of analysis so the terminology ‘gender-sensitive budgets’ is increasingly being adopted. It is important to recognise that ’women’s budgets’ or ‘gender-sensitive budgets’ are not separate budgets for women, or for men. They are attempts to break down, or disaggregate, the government’s mainstream budget according to its impact on women and men, and different groups of women and men, with cognizance being given to the society’s underpinning gender relations. (Sharp, Rhonda: 1999)
Training material
Gender and Budgets, BRIDGE Cutting Edge PackEveryone who has struggled to mainstream gender into public policy recognises that programmed action without money attached amounts to inaction. While government budgets allocate resources in ways that perpetuate gender biases, budgets also offer the potential to transform gender inequalities. This pack shows how in recent years gender budget initiatives (GBI), both inside and outside government, have risen to this challenge.
This Cutting Edge Pack is also available on cd-rom.
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Gender Budgeting:What it is. How to do it. Why to do it. Tools
Gender Responsive Budget Initiatives Resources
The Finacial Requirements of Achieving Gender Eqiality and Women's Empowerment
Gender Budgeting IMF Working Paper
Gender Budgeting for African Development
Women’s Empowerment through Gender Budgeting- A review in the Indian Context
The Potential of Gender Budgeting: Has its Day Come?
This slide presentation summarises important points relating to gender budgeting, and include some exmaples of "how to...". Useful as a source for those preparing training materials or presentations on the subject
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What are the why, how and where of gender budget initiatives? With over fifty initiatives to date, what good practice is there to share? Building on the overview given in Gender Budgets Make Cents, this volume of case studies gives practitioners' accounts of the challenges and opportunities of gender budget work across Africa, Latin America, East and South-east Asia, Europe and the Pacific. The strongest message from this book is that whilst it is important to learn from other initiatives, there is no one single way to do gender budget work - each successful initiative is shaped to the social, cultural, political, and economic context. Whilst all initiatives see that the ultimate aim in their work is to mainstream gender into all aspects of the government budget, there is often a decision to focus down, for example on particular sectors or on gender-targeted expenditure. International agencies also have a role to play in promoting gender budget work, as shown in the chapter on the Commonwealth Secretariat. However, initiatives have been and should remain in the ownership of national stakeholders.
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The Gender Responsive Budget Iniatives (GRBI) is a collaborative effort between the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), The Commonwealth Secretariat and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), to support government and civil society in analyzing national and /or local budgets from a gender perspective and applying this analysis to the formulation of gender responsive budgets.
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Introduction
The report below reviews existing gender budget initiatives so as to provide the basis for the
redesign and development of an effective programme to support gender budget work at
country level. The Commonwealth Secretariat (ComSec) has had an explicit programme of
support for gender budget initiatives since 1996. The United Nations Development Fund for
Women (Unifem) has not had an explicit programme but has, nevertheless, provided support
of various kinds under other programme headings. The International Development Research
Centre (IDRC) has more recently become interested in supporting these initiatives, and
collaborated with ComSec and Unifem in raising money for, and planning, continued
support.
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Although the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been ratified in global and national forums, they have not yet been incorporated into operational planning within governments or international organizations. The weak link between policies and the investments needed for implementation is one barrier to progress. Achieving the MDGs requires long-term planning, as well as short-term expenditure and policy formulation. An assessment of the resources required is a critical first step in formulating and implementing strategies to achieve the MDGs.
This is especially true for policies to promote gender equality and empower women. A particular challenge for national governments and the international community is how to accelerate implementation of Millennium Development Goal 3 (MDG3) on gender equality and women’s empowerment at the country level. Although sufficient knowledge exists about policies and interventions to eliminate many forms of gender inequality and empower women, the costs of such interventions are not systematically calculated and integrated into country-level budgeting processes.
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Women are disadvantaged relative to men, according to key economic, social, and political
measures of equality, but in many areas, such as education, differences are narrowing. The
concept of externalities underlies the arguments for including gender considerations in budget
programs and policies. Other arguments have a weaker economic basis but may be more
socially or politically compelling. The experience to date with “gender budgeting,” which
entails looking at gender issues comprehensively within the budget, has been mixed. To become
more useful, gender budgeting should be integrated into budget processes in a way that
generates tangible improvements in policy outcomes. The International Monetary Fund should
encourage fiscal authorities to take into account the external benefits of reducing gender
inequalities and to remove from fiscal legislation any arbitrary discrimination against women.
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Africa has entered the new Millennium with critical challenges characterised by profound poverty, spread of the
HIV/AIDs pandemic, marginalisation in the global economy, civil war and conflicts and gender inequalities.
Poverty is the greatest challenge faced by African countries. It is estimated that more than 50% of the African
population is below the poverty line. Africa lags behind in addressing all the dimensions of poverty. African
development prospects 2003 and 2004 reports issued by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
suggest that the continent needs to take more strategic and proactive measures if it is to effectively fight poverty
and pave the way for its sustainable development.
Gender inequalities that characterise African societies hamper the continent’s development prospects and efforts.
The linkages between gender and poverty have been widely documented. Poverty and gender inequalities
reinforce each other. While poverty exacerbates gender inequalities, the latter are costly to poverty reduction and
development efforts.
African countries have taken measures to address poverty including the establishment of regional integration
commissions to benefit from the economies of scale that can help the countries to tackle poverty and accelerate
their individual and collective development, the recent formulation of Poverty Reduction Strategies as part of the
Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiatives, the adoption with the international community of the Millennium
Development Goals that derive from the 2000 Millennium Declaration, the endorsement in 2001 of the New
Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) by African Heads of States and Governments which articulated a
new vision for the renewal and an effective development Africa.
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“Gender Budgeting” is now recognized as a tool for empowering women.
This paper gives a broad overview of the gender budgeting initiatives in
India, highlighting certain related issues that need to be addressed for making
gender budgeting an effective tool for women’s empowerment, in the Indian
context. It explores the query – how effective has gender budgeting been as
a tool for women’s empowerment, in its present form, in the Indian
context. While no direct solutions are offered, an attempt has been made to
bring certain pertinent issues into focus along with suggestions on alternative
strategies.
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In 1984, Australia was the first country to introduce a gender-sensitive budget as a pilot
project. Although it is not clear from the literature exactly what countries have attempted “to do”
in preparing a gender budget, it appears that several nations have moved or are moving in this
direction: Barbados, Fiji, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka,
St. Kitts, Switzerland, Tanzania, Uganda, The United Kingdom, Zambia and Zimbabwe
(Unifem, 2000). Note the preponderance of Commonwealth countries.
While it is also not clear exactly what the focus of a gender budget is or should be, it is
probably safe to say that they are generally focused on the analysis of public expenditures and
revenue from a gender perspective, identifying the implications for women/girls compared to
men/boys. Cagatay et. al. (2000) write that, “the ultimate goal of these various budget initiatives
is to come up with reprioritization of both expenditures and revenue-raising methods in order to
promote social justice.” (p. 14)
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