Case Study: The Gender Responsive Budgeting Program in Egypt From Initiative to Experience

1. Case Study: The Gender Responsive Budgeting Program in Egypt From Initiative to Experience (2000-2012) Presented By : Dr. Maya Morsy Country Coordinator Egypt UN Women Cairo, Egypt |28 November 2012

2. What is Gender Responsive Social Budgeting? Gender Responsive Budgeting Defined: • Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is government planning, programming and budgeting that contributes to the advancement of gender equality and the fulfillment of women's rights. It entails identifying and reflecting needed interventions to address gender gaps in sector and local government policies, plans and budgets. GRB also aims to analyze the gender-differentiated impact of revenue-raising policies and the allocation of domestic resources and Official Development Assistance. Social Budgeting Defined: • The term “Social Budgeting” doesn’t have one single definitionbut it could be “described as the process by which society’s goals and priorities as well as the rights of all of the population—including those that could be facing social exclusion and discrimination—are better reflected throughout the budgeting process.Often, those with least voice include poor households and children, women, and socially excluded groups and communities).” Social Budgeting is not just about the allocations within the budget for the vulnerable groups, however, it’s about the process by which the goals and priorities of the society are reflected within the budget. Thus, Gender Responsive Social Budgeting is the process by which society’s goals and priorities are reflected and where the government planning, programming and budgeting contributes to the advancement of gender equality and the fulfillment of women's rights

3. Brief Description- Gender Responsive Budgeting in Egypt UN Women has been working on the implementation of Gender Responsive Budgets and gender mainstreaming in the national plans to ensure the delivery of services to the most vulnerable groups. • 2000-2004: Establishing of Equal Opportunities Unit. These units would be affiliated to the Office of the Minister. • 2005 -2011: Building the capacity of the relevant MOF and the selected staff from other Ministries to track, monitor, and evaluate national and local public budgets from a gender and poverty perspective and produce policy recommendations on equal opportunity for women in the budget, create insight of equal opportunities in the national budget revenues and expenditures and facilitate transparency in budget formulation processes. • 2011-Present: Initiating the Gender Responsive Social Budgeting Strategy , finalizing the capacity development of all local budget employees in 27 governorates in the 5 sectors (Health- Education- Manpower- Social security- Food security) and launching the first Arabic e-learning platform The initiative is a multi- stakeholder initiative in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, the National Council for Women, Academic institutes and UN Women.

4. Program StrategiesMinistry of Finance Leading2005-2011 • Advocacy • Tools and Methodology • Capacity Development • Financial Reform. • Institutional Development. • Legislative Reform. • Public Policy Interventions. • Awareness Raising. • Process Documentation.

5. Legislative Reform • Establishment of Family Court • Establishment of Alimony Fund • Personal Status Law • Pension Law • Tax Law

6. Tools and Methodology • Situational Analysis for men and women in the society (Updated every 2 years). • Needs Assessment on Local and Governorate level 27 Plans . • Gender Mainstreaming in the socio economic national plan (2002-2007) -(2007-2012) • Development of Gender indicators. • Analysis of public fiscal policies from a gender perspective. • Analysis of the budget cycle. • Engendering the call circular and the budget law. • Amendment to the Constitution for the legislative role of the Parliament with Regard to the Budget. (commenting and approval)

7. Tools and Methodology • Development of budget templates to ensure the inclusion of sex disaggregated data of beneficiaries on the “Benefit Incidence Analysis” basis. • Analysis of public expenditures from a gender perspective. • Analysis of Women specific allocations / Gender Equality allocations • Analysis of Public expenditure and its impact on gender. • Project on the Automation of the budget process • Development of a Monitoring & Evaluation mechanism.

8. The measures that are currently in place • A GRB knowledge package was developed through a participatory approach with core of experts established from the Institute of Planning, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Budget Experts from the Ministry of Finance • The capacities of MOF employees working on the processes of planning, reviewing and the execution processes of the budget were built. • A cadre of budget employees willing and capable of producing a gender sensitive budget was created. • Focused on the following sectors: Education, Health, Water, Manpower, Food Security and Social Security as the target sectors for applying GRB in Egypt since they are the service sectors that mostly affect the society. • The Call Circular and the process of the budget were analyzed, which were important steps to initiate the required legislative reforms

9. The measures that are currently in place • A Gender Analysis of the National budget (2006-2007) and the National Development Plan (2007-2012), in addition to a Gender Analysis study of the existing financial government policies were conducted. • A specialized Forum of women parliamentarians was organized to discuss GRB and highlight the role of the parliament. • Technical materials were translated to the Arabic language like Diane Elson UNIFEM Book, “Budgeting for Women’s Rights: Monitoring Government Budgets for the Compliance with CEDAW.” • Media seminars were held to raise awareness about GRB and to advocate for the concept within the different media channels • Civil Society workshops were organized to introduce the representatives to the GRB concept and the steps taken by MOF to apply such concept. The workshops were unprecedented to ensure transparency and cooperation between the government and the civil society. • RITSEC: An E-learning system the first GRB Arabic e-learning hub

10. Challenges, Lessons Learned, and Best Practices Challenges: • The Turn over in Political Leadership, • The resistance culture within government employees • The lack of knowledge and belief on concepts related to gender equality and women’s empowerment • Acceptance to move from line Item budget to Program based budget • The availability of sex- disaggregated data. Lessons Learned: • An incentives policies to change from traditional line item budgets to GRB must be developed. • A strong political will is necessary for the implementation of GRB • Legislative and Financial Reforms must be introduced • Gender Analysis must be conducted and linked to the presentation of the national budget

11. Best Practices: • Building a cadre of trainers inside the budget department creates national ownership and sustainability. (500 employees) • Introducing legislative reforms through the engendering of the budget process in the budget circular is a key factor to the sustainability and institutionalization of the model • Conducting on the job trainings (OJT) in local governorates has been regarded as a best practice because it does not only focus on theoretical trainings and encouraged budget employees to develop the gender sensitive budget templates in parallel to the traditional line item budgets. • The institutionalization of the GRB in the Ministry of finance and the presence of the provisions of GRB in the call circular from 2008 till present

12. Thank You 12