Hofbauer Balmori, H., 2003, 'Gender and Budgets: Overview Report', BRIDGE Cutting Edge Pack, Brighton: BRIDGE/Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

Why is progress towards gender equality so slow? According to this report, it is partly due to a failure to attach money to policy commitments. While government budgets allocate resources in ways that perpetuate gender biases, budgets also offer the potential to transform gender inequalities. In recent years, gender budget initiatives (GBI), both inside and outside government, have risen to this challenge. Although most GBIs are still primarily focused on analysing the budget and its impact, the ultimate aim is to mainstream gender into the criteria that determine the planning, formulation and implementation of the budget. In order to make this a reality, new methodologies need to be identified and documented. The GBIs themselves need to be consistently followed up, evaluated and the identifiable impacts of different GBIs shared. New approaches, alliances and tools also need to be explored, such as the potential for mainstreaming gender into participatory budget initiatives, and the comprehensive development of a rights-based approach to gender and budgets.

BRIDGE, 2003, Gender and Budgets: Gender and Development In Brief, Brighton: BRIDGE/Institute of Development Studies (IDS)

The first article of this issue of In Brief shows how in recent years gender budget initiatives (GBI) have been seeking to attach money to policy commitments. However, there is no magic recipe for a successful GBI, as the country context is crucial, but certain strategies can strengthen them. Extra political leverage can come from coalitions of civil society organisations as shown in the article by the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP). Involving citizens, and particularly women, in the formulation of the budget has been an effective strategy in the municipality of Recife, Brazil.

Genre et budgets, Développement et genre en bref
Género y Presupuestos, Género y Desarrollo en breve

Budlender, D., Elson, D., Hewitt, G. and Mukhopadhyay, T., (eds), 2002, Gender Budgets Make Cents: understanding gender responsive budgets, London: Commonwealth Secretariat

How can greater consistency between social commitments and economic goals be achieved? This publication aims to inspire government officials, policy-makers, donor agencies, and civil society groups to engage in gender-responsive budget initiatives by demonstrating both equity and efficiency gains. In four sections this book gives the conceptual and theoretical framework, traces the evolution of such initiatives, evaluates the role of different stakeholders, and profiles country activities, highlighting good practice. Gender-responsive budget initiatives (GRBIs) are mechanisms for mainstreaming gender into public expenditure and public revenue decision-making, which can lead to more effective policy design and outcomes. However, the technical nature of much gender budget work can obscure the political nature of the budget process and hence the need for advocacy strategies. Political support is crucial, particularly from finance ministries and officials in key sectoral ministries. Ministers responsible for women's affairs are important advocates but often lack political influence to mobilise support and lack the capacity to address macroeconomic issues. Recommendations include the need for broad-based coalitions, sex-disaggregated indicators, the development of tools for revenue analysis, and more work at the sub-national level.

Lessons learned from GRBIs include:

• All GRBIs experience scarcity of gender-disaggregated data needed for effective programme design and implementation.
• The Asia Foundation's work on gender budgets has the strength of a "triangle of players", i.e. progressive elected officials, effective government institutions, and active, well-informed coalitions of NGOs and people's organisations.
• Initiatives in the Philippines and South Africa claim to have learnt from the Australian gender budget work but have both implemented the ideas very differently. There is no "blueprint" in terms of tools for gender analysis in gender budget work as the 'initiative has to be fought on the country terrain' (p125).
• In the South African Women's Budget Initiative race issues have been included, demonstrating that additional social concerns can be incorporated into GRBIs.
• Whilst a number of donor agencies have provided valuable support for GRBIs, there are dangers of financial dependency reducing the sustainability of some projects.
• Some donor agencies supporting GRBIs have reported opposition from colleagues, particularly from those involved in economic issues who might be opposed to or misunderstand the need to incorporate gender concerns into macroeconomics and poverty reduction strategies.

Recommendations include:

• Indicators must be disaggregated by gender if the important question of "results for whom?" is to be answered.
• All those that potentially can have a significant impact on making government budgets more gender-sensitive should be involved in the initiative - broad-based coalitions are essential.
• More regional or broader inter-country level work is needed to raise awareness and strengthen capacity.
• Tools for revenue analysis need to be developed, including to examine taxation (direct and indirect) and user-financing of basic services, to answer the question "costs to whom?"
• More work is needed on gender-responsive budgets at the sub-national level of government - this has accompanied decentralisation processes in India and Peru.
• Any training undertaken, particularly if targeted at government officials, has to provide clear guidelines and methodologies and be embedded in a strategy for implementation and a capacity-building process.
• Donor agencies should support activities initiated at the country level to ensure country ownership of GRBIs.

See also: Budlender, D., 2000, 'The political economy of women's budgets in the South', World Development, Vol 28 No 7

Budlender, D., 2002, 'Gender Budgets: What's in it for NGOs?' Gender and Development: Poverty, Vol 10 No 3

This article is available in full with the kind permission of Oxfam Publishing
(For subscribing to Gender and Development see: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13552074.asp)

Over the last seven years, there has been increasing interest in gender budget work worldwide. There are, however, big differences between the initiatives in different countries. In particular, in some cases the initiatives have been located inside government; in other cases in Parliament; and in yet others within civil society. This article discusses what gender budgets entail, and why non-governmental organisations (NGOs) might be interested in engaging in them. NGOs may engage in gender budgets as an effective advocacy tool, and this can be done by non-economists. Successful gender budgets work should be manageable in size and objective, and should focus on gender power relations, not simply on women. Although gender budgets work is often difficult to do, it is important to provide facts and to provide numerical evidence of inequality, in order to make the case for engaging in gender budgets as strong as possible. (Adapted from executive summary of article).

Çagatay, N., 2003, 'Gender Budgets and Beyond: Feminist Fiscal Policy in the Context of Globalisation', Women Reinventing Globalisation - Special Issue of Gender and Development,
Vol 11 No 1

This article is available in full with the kind permission of Oxfam Publishing.
(For subscribing to Gender and Development see: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13552074.asp)

This article is part of a special issue of Oxfam's Gender and Development journal entitled Women Reinventing Globalisation, bringing together insights drawn from the Ninth International Forum of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID). It focuses on the gender-blindness of macro-economic and fiscal policies. Structural adjustment policies (SAPs) imposed by northern donors require southern governments to reduce spending and put faith in private 'efficiency' to reduce poverty and fuel growth. In fact, the number of people living in poverty has stayed constant or increased, putting greater demands on public services. At the same time, tax revenues in the poorest countries have declined as a result of liberalisation; official development assistance has stayed constant, contrary to the pledge of northern countries to increase it; and public spending has become increasingly corrupt. Reduced access to public services disproportionately affects women and girls, who, for instance, frequently carry a larger burden of care and domestic responsibilities. Feminists must campaign around issues such as debt cancellation and global taxation and ensure more coherence at the international as well as regional and local levels if budgets are to become more gender-sensitive in the future.

Elson, D., 2000, 'Accountability for the progress of women: women demanding action' in Elson, D., Progress of the World's Women: UNIFEM Biennial Report, New York: United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)

What mechanisms are there for holding government to account over international commitments to furthering gender equality? Are government policy commitments to gender equality backed up by resource commitments? Government spending and revenue raising can be linked to the degree of implementation of international conference commitments on gender equality, obligations under human rights treaties, and national policy statements. Analysing budgets from a gender perspective allows women to "follow the money" to check whether government rhetoric is followed in practice. This chapter introduces the concepts and practicalities of GBIs, describing how they can help programmes aimed at gender equality that are currently failing through lack of resources. Boxed examples show local, national, and international initiatives to promote gender-sensitive budgets, with a distinction between those working within government, and those initiated by civil society organisations. These range from the cross-country work of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the Commonwealth Secretariat programmes, to the women's budget initiatives in Australia and South Africa, to campaigns such as the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) (Workers' and Farmers' Power Association) Right to Information Campaign in India. Examples of tools and training initiatives are also given such as Diane Elson's tools, and education programmes in South Africa, Canada and Tanzania. This chapter also makes some general conclusions over the best location of GBIs, the importance of advocacy, the need for technical knowledge, and the importance of combining support from both government and civil society.