Gender budgets:

Allocations of public money have a direct impact on the way time is spent within the household, and in particular on the burden of work on women.  There are many examples throughout the world of budget analysis from a gender or women’s perspective, tracking the impact of the budget on women’s rights and lives both at government and NGO level.  This workshop was based around the experiences of the Tanzania Gender Networking Program and two organizations, Fundar and Equidad de Género, in Mexico.

Why gender budgets?
The series of UN conferences on women’s rights in Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing have established the relationship between gender, power, decision making and the allocation of resources.  Governments agreed a target of 30% of decision making positions to be held by women by 1995, and furthermore, by the year 2015 signatories to these agreements have committed to:

•  provide universal primary education

• achieve equivalent levels of education for boys and girls

• make reproductive health care accessible to all 

• achieve infant mortality below 35/1000 live births 

• reduce maternal mortality by at least half – to below 75 per million births

• achieve life expectancy of greater than 70

However, governments are good at signing agreements, but we need to track what they are doing to meet the goals of these agreements. The ultimate aim of gender analysis of national budgets is to incorporate gender variables into the models on which planning and budgeting is based.  This requires gender disaggregated data and analysis of unpaid and unrecorded work of women.  There have been several methodological approaches to do this through the budget:

·        gender aware policy appraisal means looking at policies and programs funded through public money from a gender perspective, asking how they will reduce or increase gender inequalities;

·        asking beneficiaries of government spending, actual or potential, how far the spending meets their needs as they perceive them, through opinion polls, surveys or interviews, can raise quieter voices in the debate;

·        expenditure incidence analysis of public expenditure by comparing distribution of benefits among women, men, girls and boys can help clarify the distribution of public spending and also suggest the gender impact of cuts;

·        revenue incidence analysis can be used to calculate how taxes or user charges affect different categories of households or individuals;

·        analysis on the impact of government spending on time use of women and men can inform policy debates, cuts and spending;

·        disaggregating sex variables into the medium term expenditure framework or introducing new variables to represent the unpaid care economy can encourage planning.

Women’s budgets in Mexico:
In Mexico only 0.03% of the budget is dedicated directly to women, which constitutes a political statement.  In order to track the impact of the budget on women we need to unpack the other elements of spending in relation to the needs and concerns of women.  This includes analysis of expenditures specifically targeted by sex, such as programs for women’s health or mothers; expenditure on equal opportunity legislation and implementation and general or mainstream budget expenditure with public benefit, assessed by gender impact. 

Lucia Perez and Helena Hofbauer presented the methodology they have been using to conduct gender analysis of the budget in Mexico. 

1.  identify the international framework for poverty alleviation

2.  present the diagnosis of women and poverty

3. analyze government policy for gender sensitivity on the basis of this diagnosis

4. evaluate (in)sufficiency of allocations for carrying out this policy

5.  monitor policy implementation – who benefits? Who does it reach?

6.  measure impact of spending using outcomes and outputs

7. work on policy proposals and alternatives – how to achieve different outcomes, how to have more impact on the gender gap.

Women’s budgets in Tanzania:
Gender Budget Initiative (GBI) is an ongoing lobbying program initiated by a coalition of gender and civil society organizations and coordinated by the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme. The introduction of policies of cost-sharing, retrenchment, social spending cuts and privatization as part of structural adjustment has had a retrogressive impact on gender equity in Tanzania.  In this context, GBI aims to analyze macro and micro economic policies and the impact that these policies (including the national budget) have on different social groups in the country. 

Research was carried out at district and national levels on the key sectors in planning and budgeting and key service provider agencies.  Data was collected and analyzed from a gender perspective by analysts from universities, NGOs and government. This arrangement made it easier to access data and added different perspectives and skills to the work.  The research process also involved feedback workshops with communities, where comments from participants could be incorporated into the research.  

The findings of the research were disseminated through activist organizations, government departments and agencies and public forums with civil society, policy makers and technocrats.  As a result of lobbying a paragraph on gender was included in the 1999-2000 budget guidelines and in the 2000-01 guidelines all departments, ministries and agencies were instructed to prepare budgets with a gender focus.  TGNP has also been commissioned to run workshops for budget officers and develop tools for mainstreaming gender in key government sectors.  A campaign is planned to extend the impact of the research to grassroots, raising public awareness of the importance of participation in the budget process, and to donors, with influence in macroeconomic policies and systems.