Gender Budgeting: a tool for change?

1. Gender Budgeting:a tool for change? By Dono Abdurazakova, UNDP Regional Gender Adviser Bratislava, Slovakia

2. PrimaryEducation Gender Povertyand Equality Hunger Child Maternal Mortality Health Partnership for HIV / AIDS and Development other Diseases Environmental Sustainability Millennium Development Goals By 2015

3. Basic terms and definitions Sex: biologically determined, universal Gender - social differences, learned, changeable over time, and with wide variations within and between cultures

4. Gender Budgets are … ….not about separate budgets for women!

5. Gender Budgets are … ..but an approach to examine or scrutinize government and other budgets, ALL its sectors through gender lens for their contribution to gender equity and equality, and re-allocating, or re-prioritizing existing budgets

6. Objectives • Mainstream gender issues within government policies ; • Promote greater accountability for governments’ commitments to gender equality • Change budgets and policies

7. Ways for gender analysis • Gender Mainstreaming • Gender Impact Analysis

8. What is Gender Mainstreaming? “… the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.” The Report of the Economic and Social Council for 1997. United Nations, 1997.

9. Gender Impact Assessment • …means to compare and assess, according to gender relevant criteria, the relevant situation and trend with the expected development resulting from the introduction of the proposed policy

10. Tools for gender analysis of budgets • Gender-aware policy appraisal • Gender-disaggregated beneficiary assessments • Gender-disaggregated public expenditure incidence analysis • Gender-disaggregated tax incidence analysis • Gender-disaggregated analysis of the impact of the budget on time use • Gender-aware medium term economic policy framework • Gender-aware budget statement

11. Gender sensitive budgets …imply a variety of processes and tools to assess the impact of government budgets, both expenditure and revenue, at national or local level, on the social and economic position of women, men, girls and boys.

12. More than 50 GSB initiatives worldwide… • Participants – researchers, activists, NGOs, parliament, government • Scope of the exercise – national, local, expenditure, revenue, all or selected portfolios • Activities -- research, publication, material development, advocacy, training • Audience -- government officials, parliamentarians, advocacy NGOs, citizen’s groups, researchers, media, public • Targeted policy process –planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation

13. UNDP- supported ‘Best Practices’ from the region: • Mandatory gender courses for government officials (Russia, Ukraine) • Gender Mainstreaming of Local policies (Kazakhstan) • Creation of Institutional mechanisms (Kyrgyzstan)

14. Existing tools & methodologies: • Financing for Development Gender Policy Briefing Kit by UNDP/Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) joint project, http://www.wedo.org/ffd/kit.htm • The same in Russian: gender.undp.sk

15. Existing tools & methodologies: • Gender Mainstreaming in Practice: A Handbook • Drafting Gender-Aware Legislation:How to Promote and Protect Gender Equality in the Central and Eastern Europe and in the CIS -by UNDP RBEC Regional Center, Bratislava. Available at UNDP RBEC Gender Virtual Gender Library, http://gender.undp.sk

16. Existing tools and methodologies Gender Mainstreaming In Practice: A Handbook UNDP, Bratislava, 2002 http://gender.undp.sk/