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Gender Budget Initiatives or
Gender Responsive Budgets are
tools and processes designed to
facilitate a gender analysis in
the formulation of government
budgets and the allocation of
resources. Gender 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 impacts on
women and men. The way in which
national budgets are usually
formulated ignores the
different, socially determined
roles, responsibilities and
capabilities of men and women.
Budgets formed from a
gender-neutral perspective
ignore the different impacts on
men and women because their
roles, responsibilities and
capacities in any society are
never the same. These
differences are generally
structured in a way that leaves
women at a disadvantage in
society by creating inequality
gaps. Therefore they are an
important tool for analyzing the
gap between expressed
commitments by governments and
the decision-making processes
involved in how governments
raise and spend money. Gender
responsive budgets can
contribute to narrowing such
gaps. Progress towards gender
equality is slow, and this is in
part due to the failure to
attach money to policy
commitments.
Overall research shows that not
enough attention is given to the
impact of allocated resources
and this serves to perpetuate
gender biases, although budgets
offer the potential to transform
gender inequalities. Good policy
requires understanding both the
impact of policy and how it
might be better designed to
achieve outcomes which meet the
needs of women, men, and girls
and boys as well as different
groups of women, men and
children. There is no single
approach or model of a gender
sensitive budget exercise.
Evidence suggests that the
economic gains of gender
equality lead to increased
output and better development of
people’s capacities. Women’s
economic empowerment could
provide the possibility for all
countries to have some
combination of increased
productivity, less stress and
better overall health.
Looking at the direct and
indirect impacts of government
budgets forces re-evaluation of
the long held assumption that
government budgets and economic
policies are generally "gender
neutral". The ultimate aim is to
mainstream gender budget
initiatives into public policy.
The Evolution of Gender
Responsive Budgets (GRB)
The explosion of
gender-responsive budgets in the
last eight years has been
phenomenal. In 1995, there were
only a few countries and
agencies involved in this area.
Today, however, a variety of
groups operating at various
levels have implemented some
form of gender budget work in
over sixty countries. In
addition, many development
agencies either have a GRB
programme or support work at the
country level. Encouragingly,
there has been particular
interest in countries new to
democracy. Whether it is seen
as: (a) increasing the
responsiveness of fiscal policy
to poverty and social need; (b)
enhancing governance; (c)
supporting gender mainstreaming;
(d) encouraging civil society
participation; or (e)
strengthening the monitoring and
evaluation of outcomes of
government action, the
methodology used in gender
budget work can help improve the
efficiency, economy and gender
equity of development
strategies. One of the strong
features of gender budget work
has been the desire of
practitioners to adapt the
methodology to their specific
situation, needs, interests and
capabilities. Based on the
recognition that each context is
unique, this willingness to
innovate is one of the crucial
ways of building in-country
capacity and ensuring local
ownership. These are essential
if the initiatives are to be
both relevant to the needs of
the society and sustained over
time. This guide was therefore
prepared with some apprehension.
The worry stemmed from the
desire to avoid implying that
there is a single recipe or
blueprint for implementing a
gender budget exercise. Too
often, development interventions
are limited by the importation
of ‘models of best practice’,
often by well-intended
development agencies or
‘experts’, into situations
bearing little resemblance to
those from which the models were
taken. At the same time,
however, basic information about
gender budgets needs to be made
available so that practitioners
can understand some of the
fundamentals and determine how
best these can be adapted to
their local context. There is
still a limited number of people
with the necessary skills or
availability to support the
growing need for gender budget
work. This guide therefore
attempts to fill a specific gap
in the literature and to
assemble in one document some of
the background information that
practitioners should have at
their disposal to answer
questions about how to design
and implement a GRB.
Resources
►
Engendering Budgets
A Practitioners' Guide to Understanding and
Implementing Gender-responsive
Budgets
A Case Study
discussing the case of
PHILIPPINES
►
Gender-Responsive Budgeting
Policy
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