Gender budget initiatives (GBIs) analyse the government’s budget in order to establish how commitment to gender equality translates into monetary terms. Can GBIs help overcome existing gender inequalities? Can they assist in transforming the social, economic and political arrangements that leave women in a subordinated position to men? Compiled for BRIDGE (development – gender), this report examines the problem of gender inequality and the potential of GBIs as a tool for advancing towards equity.
Despite the stated commitment of governments to gender equality, recent evaluations show limited advances in terms of equal life experiences and distribution of opportunities among women and men. GBIs have the potential to contribute to greater gender equity, accountability, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness as a crucial first step towards the formulation of budgets that are gender sensitive.
The budget is essentially a governmental declaration of its principles and values as well as a technical instrument to demonstrate policy priorities. More than 40 countries have conducted some kind of GBI. Although most GBIs have been conducted at the national level, they can also be conducted at the sub-national or local level where more opportunities exist to encourage the active participation of women. GBIs bring a gender perspective to the budget and encourage concrete resource allocation for gender issues. In particular GBIs can:
- Expose how the gender-neutral nature of macroeconomic frameworks results in gender-blind budgets.
- Measure the gaps between policy commitments, the adequacy of resource allocations and policy outcomes.
- Highlight discrepancies and promote gender equality by pursuing gender-based planning activities and the consequent gender-sensitive allocation of resources.
- Increase accountability and transparency by engaging civil society and opening channels for women’s participation and involvement in the decision-making process.
Despite the fact that GBIs can make a significant contribution to the fulfilment of overall social, economic and political objectives, they do not represent the final solution for turning the tide of gender inequality. A number of limitations and implementation issues must be considered by donors:
- As a tool designed to examine the capacity of government budgets to transmit inequality, GBIs operate within a broader process determined by context-specific opportunities, challenges and obstacles.
- As GBIs operate in an inherently political arena and question core structural arrangements, the possibilities for change are constrained if initiatives come exclusively from within government.
- A combination of grassroots movements, activists and research bodies can be powerful in moving a GBI forward, but conflicting interests and dynamics can weaken broad coalitions in the absence of an inclusive, strategic vision.
- Whilst external consultants can play a crucial role, there is a danger of dependency where the GBI process does not build in-country and in-house capacities for long-term budget analysis and advocacy.
- Broad-based participation can be problematic due to the technical nature of budget information and the distance between political processes and individual citizens.