What Are Gender Budgets?
The budget is a policy statement. It reflects the social and economic
priorities of a government, the monetary embodiment of its political commitment
to specific policies and programmes. Gender-responsive budget analysis provides
a way to hold governments accountable for its commitments to gender equality and
women’s human rights — by linking these commitments to the distribution, use and
generation of public resources.
Gender-responsive budget analysis simply refers to the analysis of actual
government expenditure and revenue on women and girls as compared to men and
boys. Gender budgets are not separate budgets for women and they don’t aim to
solely increase spending on women-specific programmes.
Although national budgets may appear to be gender-neutral policy instruments,
government expenditures and revenue collection have different impacts on women
and men. Gender budget analysis helps governments decide how policies need to be
adjusted, and where resources need to be reallocated.
It also provides a way to hold governments accountable for its commitments to
gender equality and women’s human rights, such as Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), by linking these
commitments to the distribution, use and generation of public resources.
Gender-responsive budget analysis promotes equality, transparency, efficiency
and accountability.
Gender responsive budget initiatives can be carried out at national,
provincial and municipal levels and may cover the overall budget or selected
parts. They can be done within government, by the Ministry of Finance in
conjunction with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs or other spending ministries,
or outside government, by NGOs and/or independent researchers. Initiatives with
support within and outside of government, operating in dialogue with each other,
have proven especially effective.
Applying gender analysis to the budget is not simply a technical exercise. It
requires thinking about government finances in a new way, looking beyond the
household as a single unit of analysis to examine the situation of each of its
members, male and female. It requires a focus on the unpaid care economy, in
which much of women’s time is spent. And it requires gender-disaggregated
statistics.
Note: The complete brochure can be downloaded as a
PDF
file (412 KB).
UNIFEM, UNV Gender Budgeting Project Advances in Latin
America
In late 2005 UNIFEM and UNV, with support from UNDP, launched a joint
programme entitled “Engendering Budgets: Making visible women’s voluntary
contributions to national development in Latin America”. Operations began
recently in five countries — Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and
Peru — and an induction seminar was held on 17 to 19 April in Brasilia with
participation of more than 30 people, including staff and volunteers from UNDP,
UNIFEM and UNV as well as representatives of local governments and non
governmental organizations from the municipalities where the programme is
underway.
The seminar was formally opened by Mr. Lucien Munoz, UNDP Resident
Representative a.i. in Brazil, Ms. Ana Falu, UNIFEM Regional Programme Director
for Brazil and the Southern Cone, and Mr. Robert Leigh, Senior Policy Specialist
at UNV Headquarters. Mr. Munoz highlighted the importance of this example of
collaboration in the context of UN Reform. He described the initiative as a
courageous effort on the part of two UN agencies to connect strategies and
integrate actions around gender in several countries in the region to assist in
efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
The seminar provided an opportunity for many of the principle stakeholders
involved in the initiative to make presentations and take part in panel
discussions on the themes of participatory budgets, gender and volunteerism, and
to consider action plans in the participating countries. Views on key concepts
were debated and information on experiences shared. The seminar is an important
step forward in ensuring that the distinctive contributions of UNIFEM and UNV
are realized in reaching the goal of promoting women’s capacities and abilities
to be involved in political and economic processes.
For more information, please contact:
Donna Keher
Chief, Partnerships, Communications & Resources
Mobilization
UN Volunteers – UNV Headquarters
Telephone: +49
228-815-2119
E-mail: Donna.Keher@unvolunteers.org
Reprinted from the UNV
website.
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