Why Gender Responsive Budgeting ?

Assumption 1: the economy is not a gendered structure

Economic theory is based on”market rationale”

•The economy appears gender neutral, when in fact it has very different impacts on women and men•Economic policies often regards family as the smallest unit not individuals•Assumes that women and men has equal power

Assumption 2: un-paid work is free

Formal paid work

Formal paid work

Unpaid care work

Formal unpaid work

Formal paid work

private sector

public sector

domestic sector

NGO sector

Re-visioning the economy to include the contribution of care activities

Economic institutions carry and transmit gender biases/stereotypin:

•The male lifestyle is the role model

•Women are often discriminated

•Gender segregated labor market

Assumption 3: Economic policy are not gender bias

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that the value of the invisible

work done by women is $11 trillion per year, and that the sum of global output would be almost 50% greater if this work was included in the

assessment of the economy.

Performance indicators

Policy

objectives Budget

allocations inputs outputs outcomes

CostQuality

QuantityTimeliness

equityCost

equity

Actual outcomeAppropriateness

equity

economy efficiency effectiveness

Criteria for assessment of value for moneyCost effectiveness of achieving government objectives

Policy

objectives

Gender budgeting provides a range of methodologies for analysis of expenditure and revenue streams by gender, enabling policy makers, analysts and governments to understand any differential impacts on men and women of policy decisions.

Gender Budgeting does not imply an increased focus on gender specific expenditure or revenue.

Three core goals of gender budget initiatives

Raise awareness and understanding of gender issues and impacts of budgets and policies.

Make governments accountable for their gender budgetary and policy commitments.

Change and refine government budgets And policies to promote genderEquality.

Budgetformulation

Implementation

Audit

Gender impact analysis

Budget Bill

Determination of gender indicators

Presentation of gender goals in the budget bill

Production of gender dissagregated statistics

Follow-up on ”outputs”

Evaluation of ”outcomes”

Impact of integrating a gender perspective in the budgetary process

Tools for gender analysis of the National Budget

Requires simultaneous actions at three levels:

Application of policy tools

Use of gender disaggregated data

Strengthening dialogue

Three categories of expenditures with impact on gender:

Category 1: Specific targetted expenditure by MDAs to womenor men in the community intended to meet their particular needs.

Category 2: Equal employment opportunity expenditure byMDAs on their employees.

Category 3: General or mainstream budget expenditure through which MDAs make good or services available to the whole community, but which

are assessed for their gender impact.

Total Expenditure

The Beijing Platform for Action:

One of the Strategic Objectives adopted is for governments to:

• restructure and target the allocation of public expenditures to promote women’s economic opportunities and equal access to productive resources and to address the basic social, educational and health needs of women;

• facilitate more open and transparent budget processes;

• review, adopt and maintain macro-economic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty

GRB is supported by major international organizations:

•OECD•The World Bank•UNDP•EU•Beijing +5•The Nordic Council of Ministers

The Commonwealth governments: At their meeting in September 2002, Commonwealth finance ministers, as part of a wider commitment to work towards gender equality in economic policy-making”agreed to make substantial progress on implementing gender-responsive budgets within their respective budget setting processes”

More information can be achieved from the Nordic Council of Ministers Gender Responsive Budgeting Project

www.norden.org

Project Director: catharina.schmitz@publicmanagement.se