Gender Budgeting:a tool for change?

By Dono Abdurazakova, UNDP Regional Gender Adviser

Bratislava, Slovakia

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Millennium Development Goals

By 2015

ChildMortality

HIV / AIDS andother Diseases

EnvironmentalSustainability

Partnership forDevelopment

MaternalHealth

GenderEquality

Primary Education

Poverty andHunger

•Sex: biologically determined, universal

•Gender - social differences, learned, changeable over time, and with wide variations within and between cultures

Basic terms and Basic terms and definitionsdefinitions

Gender Budgets are …

…….not about .not about separate separate budgets for budgets for women!women!

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

Gender Budgets are …

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ObjectiveObjectivess

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

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Ways for gender analysis

• Gender Mainstreaming

• Gender Impact Analysis

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What is Gender Mainstreaming?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.

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Gender Impact AssessmentGender 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

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Tools for gender analysis of Tools for gender analysis of budgetsbudgets

1. Gender-aware policy appraisal2. Gender-disaggregated beneficiary

assessments3. Gender-disaggregated public expenditure

incidence analysis4. Gender-disaggregated tax incidence

analysis5. Gender-disaggregated analysis of the

impact of the budget on time use6. Gender-aware medium term economic

policy framework7. Gender-aware budget statement

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Gender sensitive budgetsGender 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.

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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Existing tools and methodologies

Gender MainstreamingIn Practice: A Handbook

UNDP, Bratislava, 2002http://gender.undp.sk/

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