Executive Summary iv.

• Three aspects of gender budget analysis 2
• Two sides of the budget 3
• Policy-driven budgets 3
• Redistribution wit limited resources 4
• Timing 4

1. Methodology 2

III. Theoretical Framework 5

• Women and gender 5
• Unpaid labour 5
• Methodological diversity 6

IV. Key Alternatives for Reprioritisation 6

• Reprioritisation is about choice 6
• Education 7
• Public works programme 8
• Trimming the fat 9
• Defence

• Parliamentarian and non-governmental organisations 10
• Involving a wide range of actors 10

• Collaborating in support for reforms 11

• Fluidity 11

• There are no quick answers 12

• Two legs—inside and out 12
• Engaging in practice 13
• Taking it forward to all spheres of government 13

• Donor funding to government 14

• Widening the audience 14

The South African Women’s Budget Initiative has evoked widespread interest not only inside the country, but beyond its borders. This short paper presents aspects of the South African experience in the hope that they can inform similar undertakings in other countries. Its five sections discuss methodology; the theoretical framework; key alternatives for reprioritisation; alliances; and lessons learnt.

In respect of methodology, the paper notes that the Women’s Budget does not propose a separate budget for women. Rather the exercise examines the entire government budget in order to determine its differential impact on women and men, girls and boys. Expenditure analysis thus covers three aspects – gender-specific expenditures; expenditures which promote gender equity within the public service; and all other mainstream expenditures.

Gender budget analysis is based on an understanding that budgets should follow policy rather than vice versa and that policy, in turn, should reflect the (gendered) situation in the society. The South African Initiative has, however, accepted the reality that governments do not have infinite resources. Thus, whenever proposing that "more" be allocated to women or gender-sensitive programmes and policies, gender budget analysis tries simultaneously to point out where savings can be effected.

The theoretical framework of the South African Women’s Budget Initiative, despite the name, is gender analysis, where gender is defined by the social relations between women and men. The Initiative argues that government should allocate resources in a way that takes account of differential burdens borne and advantages enjoyed by women and men and try to balance these. In implementing this approach the Initiative has, of necessity, often focused on unpaid labour and the new ways of looking at the economy required by recognition of unpaid labour.

The section on reprioritisation provides a few examples which suggest the range of types of alternatives which have emerged over the past years of research. Most of the alternatives suggested in the Women’s Budget Initiative are not completely new. What might sometimes be new or different is the priority attached to the many different alternatives which have emerged in the course of South Africa’s ongoing transformation.

The section on alliances looks at both formal and informal alliances that have contributed to the success of the Initiative. The Initiative has from the beginning made a conscious effort to extend the network of people involved as much as possible. At the core of the project is an alliance between parliamentarians and non-governmental organisations. This formal alliance has been supplemented by a range of linkages with a wide variety of state and non-state actors. The fluidity of the situation in South Africa post-1994 has opened up many possibilities in this respect.

The lessons learnt range from the sobering one that budget analysis is a slow and difficult process with an enormous subject area and with few immediate rewards, to more strategic learnings as to the advantages of parallel activity inside and outside government. After more than three years the South African Women’s Budget Initiative has only begun to recognise the enormity of the task.

The South African Women’s Budget Initiative was born in mid-1995, approximately a year after the country’s first democratic elections. Within three years the Initiative had produced three books which between them analysed all sectoral allocations of the government’s budget from a gender perspective (Budlender, 1996; 1997; 1998). It had also produced a fourth book which translated parts of this work into a simpler form accessible to second-language readers with ten years of school education (Hurt & Budlender, 1998). Within two years of the Initiative’s birth a parallel exercise was introduced within government, led by the Department of Finance.

The South African Women’s Budget Initiative has evoked widespread interest not only in the country, but beyond its borders. A number of other countries in Southern Africa, in particular, have embarked on their own exercises. The Commonwealth Secretariat is providing assistance to three countries - South Africa being one - in gender budget analysis. The Secretariat sees this as their first step in tackling the issue of gender and macroeconomics.

This short paper constitutes an input to the meeting on "Women and Political Participation: 21^st Century Challenges" to be held in New Delhi in March 1999, and organised under the Management Development and Governance Division of the United Nations Development Programme. The paper presents aspects of the South African experience in the hope that they can inform similar undertakings in other countries. The paper concentrates on the outside-government initiative, which has the longer experience. It does, however, refer at points to the inside government exercise and the nature of the relationship between the two.

The paper cannot hope to capture the contents of the four books, or the experiences of over three years. Readers interested in pursuing what the practical implementation of such an exercise looks are referred to the four books mentioned above (Budlender, 1996; 1997; 1997; Hurt & Budlender, 1998).

As required by the terms of reference, the topics covered by the sections which follow are:

• Methodology used to examine the gender impact of key aspects of the South African budget;
• Theoretical framework for engendering the budget process;
• Identification of key alternatives for reprioritisation of budget issues;
• Examination of formal and informal alliances that contributed to the success of this initiative; and
• Lessons learnt and future steps.

These sections are followed by a brief conclusion which discusses to what extent the South African experience can be regarded as unique.

1. METHODOLOGY

The Women’s Budget does not propose a separate budget for women. Rather the exercise examines the entire government budget in order to determine its differential impact on women and men, girls and boys. Further, in South Africa the exercise has emphasised differential impact on different groups of women and men, along lines such as race, geography and income.

The South African exercise was informed by the 15-year Australian experience in gender budget analysis (See Sharp and Broomhill, 1998). In particular, it adopted the framework proposed by Rhonda Sharp, an Australian economist who assisted both federal and state governments in the early years.

Sharp proposes that a gender budget analysis incorporate three aspects:

1. Gender-specific expenditures: These consist of monies allocated for programmes and policies that are specifically targeted on gender lines. These expenditures come closest to the way in which people usually first interpret the words "Women’s Budget" in that they are separate and relatively easily distinguishable amounts. This aspect would, for example, include the Mozambican government’s allocation for education of young women in technical subjects. It would also include the South African Department of Welfare’s economic empowerment programme for unemployed mother with children under five years. It would include staff, operating and programme costs associated with the various forms of gender machinery adopted by different countries.

2. Expenditures which promote gender equity within the public service: These consist of monies allocated to affirmative action and other programmes which promote what in South Africa is termed greater "representivity" within the public service. Equity here would mean not only equal numbers of women and men employed, but also equal representation within management and decision-making posts, equal representation across different occupations, and equitable pay and conditions of service. In South Africa the concern would be with race, as well as gender, equity. The objective of such expenditures is, firstly, justice for the women and men employed and, secondly, a service which is more sensitive to the diversity of the population served.

3. Mainstream expenditures: These consist of the remaining expenditures not covered by the first two categories. In the much better resourced Australian context, each of the first two categories accounted for at best 1% of total expenditure. Unless this third category is addressed, therefore, a gender budget analysis will be dealing with what are essentially peripheral issues.

The third aspect of the analysis is the most important, but also the most difficult. One of the simpler examples can be found within the education sector in South Africa. Here the statistics in 1994, the latest available when the Initiative started, shows that 20% of African women aged 20 years and above, and 14% of African men in this age group had no formal education whatsoever. This severely educationally disadvantaged group thus constituted a large number of people, and one with a marked preponderance of women. Yet in the 1995/6-government budget, only approximately 1% of the total allocated to education was to be spent on adult basic education and training (ABET). Meanwhile 16% of the total was to be spent on tertiary education, a sector where there was a similar potential student base, where women dominated at the cheaper distance education institutions rather than the residential ones, and where state subsidies in the male-dominated courses of study were higher than those in which women tended to congregate.

The South African Women’s Budget, like other exercises to date, has concentrated on the expenditure side of the budget. The first book, did, however, include a chapter on taxation. By definition, ultimately as much money must be collected in revenue in any budget as is allocated as expenditure. Analysis of expenditure should, therefore, be included in gender budget analysis and needs to include all forms of revenue.

Gender budget analysis is based on an understanding that budgets should follow policy rather than vice versa. Policy, in turn, should reflect the situation in the society. This understanding has informed the methodology and presentation format of analysis in the South African exercise. Each sectoral analysis typically begins by describing the gendered situation within a particular sector. It explains current gender, race and other patterns within the sector, as well as pointing out the particular relevance of the services concerned for women and men, girls and boys.

This situation analysis is followed by a description of policy. In post-apartheid South Africa, there has been a plethora of new policy across all sectors. Given the overall commitment in the country to gender, as reflected in the Constitution’s heavy emphasis on equality, most of these policies take some account of gender - or at least mention women. The analysis within the Women’s Budget Initiative considers the extent to which this policy addresses the situation described in the previous section.

At this stage the analysis turns to the budget itself. Given a fair amount o f existing gender analysis in the country, this is clearly where the real added value of the exercise becomes apparent. Here the question is the extent to which the budget reflects those policies which have been found to be gender-sensitive and appropriate. This reflects the central argument of the Initiative as to the centrality of the budget in determining effective government policy. Stated bluntly, the Initiative asserts that without adequate budgetary allocations any policy, no matter how sensitive, will be ineffective.

Within government, the strong policy link implies that such initiatives will be most successful when done as a collaborative venture between staff from the policy, budget, information management system and gender units. To date such extensive intra-departmental collaboration has seldom occurred, either in South Africa or elsewhere.

South Africa, like other countries, does not have infinite resources. Like other countries - and perhaps even more so given its troubled history - South Africa has a seemingly unending range of needs and wants. The extent of the need is magnified by the severe inequalities in the society, which extend from the income statistics usually quoted across access to virtually every type of services.

Limited resources and seemingly unlimited needs pose the classic economic problem of resource allocation. This is what budgets are all about. The Women’s Budget Initiative openly acknowledges these tensions and that, ultimately, resources are not infinite. The Initiative does not simply argue for "more". Rather, whenever proposing that "more" be allocated to women or gender-sensitive programmes and policies, it tries simultaneously to point out where savings can be effected. In particular, it points to expenditures based on policies which might be subverting gender equity.

Timing is an important practical consideration in the methodology of policy-oriented research. The Women’s Budget Initiative has timed its work so that each year the research is completed in time for Budget Day, when the national Minister of Finance tables the budget and accompanying documentation.

In the first year the research was launched at a full-day workshop on the Sunday before Budget Wednesday. The workshop was attended by parliamentarians, media people, NGO representatives and others. The format included plenary presentations as well as group discussions of sectoral findings. As a result of the publicity, key stakeholders were aware of the initiative and some of the key findings at the time when debate around the budget was at its hottest. The Select Committee on Finance also organised special hearings on women at which the Initiative, as well as other women’s organisations, made presentations. There has not been a similar central workshop in later years. However those involved in the Initiative have ensured that key people in each sector receive a copy of the reports. Further, in each year the findings have been presented in parliamentary post-budget hearings.

Although reporting at the time of the budget presentation, the outside government’s analysis looks at the previous year’s allocations. This is unavoidable because the new figures are only available on budget day. In practice this time-lag has to date been less of a drawback than might have been expected. Firstly, even in a country undergoing relatively rapid transformation, budgets generally change only marginally from year to year. Secondly, the detailed knowledge and overall understanding which researchers gain during the research process places them in a good position to pick up quickly on any changes, as well as their possible gender implications.

The time lag could become more of a problem as and when the Initiative returns to examine sectors previously researched. The Initiative will need to think whether and how it can draw on or complement the inside government initiative in this respect. The problem might also be alleviated to the extent that government follows through on its initiatives in respect of multi-year planning and budgeting and greater involvement of civil society through earlier notification of key budget proposals.

The name "Women’s Budget" is a misnomer. A better name - and that chosen by the Tanzanian non-governmental initiative - is gender budget. The South African name is unfortunate as it misleads many people and generates opposition where it might not otherwise arise. Unfortunately, the Initiative has become known under the name and there is opposition from those involved to changing it at this stage.

Theoretically the Initiative sees gender as defined by the social relations between women and men. These relations all too often reflect and result in inequities between women and men. The analysis recognises that these relationships are not set in stone. If they were, there would be little sense in allocating money to try to change them. The analysis recognises further that all differences between women and men are unlikely to disappear. It sees the differences as constituting a problem only where they incorporate inequities.

The Initiative argues that government should allocate resources in a way that takes account of differential burdens borne and advantages enjoyed by women and men and try to balance these. The Initiative recognises that women are not always disadvantaged and that not all women are disadvantaged. Nevertheless, in the gendered relationship between women and men all too often it is women who come off worse. In that sense, the "Women" in the title of the Initiative is attractive in bluntly stating the most common situation.

As noted, the South African Women’s Budget Initiative has in three years produced analysis of every single sector of the government budget. Theoretically the total coverage asserts that every aspect of society is gendered. This assertion was central from the first. The Initiative started small, tackling only six sectors of expenditure in its first year. There was a strategic decision that the chosen sectors should include a number of social sectors generally acknowledged as significant for gender and to which women would easily relate. In addition, the Initiative selected a number of less obvious sectors in order to illustrate how gender permeates all areas of society. The six sectors covered in the first year were thus Labour, Trade and Industry, the Reconstruction and Development Programme Office, Welfare, Housing and Education.

A large proportion of the chapters of the three books raise the issue of unpaid labour. This reflects an underlying view of the economy different to that of traditional economists. The Second Women’s Budget includes a chapter which provides the basis of an economic analytical framework which is more sensitive to gender issues.

The focus on unpaid labour is in line with the work of Diane Elson (1997) and others on the "care economy". It challenges a view of the economy as composed of two producing sectors - firms and government - and a third consuming sector - households. It asserts that each of the three sectors both consumes and produces. It points out, however, that the bulk of household production is unpaid and thus overlooked by economists because seemingly without (economic) value. It points out that the bulk of this work is done by women. It shows the ways in which ignoring the effort and time spent on this work, and the value of the goods and services produced, results in misallocation of resources and of budgets in particular.

As discussed below, the Initiative has drawn on a wide range of people to undertake the research which lies at its heart. These people come from different sectors, different disciplines, and different backgrounds. All advocate gender equity, but their understanding of this as well as other things might differ in some important respects.

The Initiative has encouraged all researchers to focus on empirical "facts" more than on abstract theoretical arguments. Nevertheless, theory and ideology obviously underly which facts a researcher searches out, and how she or he presents and interprets them. The Initiative has not insisted on a tight and consistent theoretical or ideological approach from all researchers. In the first workshops with researchers the basic approach and key concepts utilised in the Initiative are presented and discussed. After this, as a new initiative in a largely unexplored field, the Initiative has encouraged experimentation. This flexibility caters better for the differences between sectors in their intrinsic nature as well as in factors such as availability of data, existence of previous research and so on. It also encourages the development of new techniques of analysis.

1. KEY ALTERNATIVES FOR REPRIORITISATION

A short paper such as this cannot hope to cover all alternatives suggested by more than 20 authors analysing close on 30 allocations. Instead, it provides a few examples that suggest the range of types of alternatives that have emerged over the past years.

Most of the alternatives suggested in the Women’s Budget Initiative are not completely new. What might sometimes be new or different, is the priority attached to different alternatives. As noted above, the post-apartheid South African government has produced a plethora of White Papers containing a wide range of policies. To date, however, these policies have often been designed without sufficient - if any - attention to the resource requirements. This problem has recently been addressed by the proposal from the Department of Finance that, in future, all legislative proposals be accompanied by an estimate of the cost of implementation. In the absence of such a practice in the past, most "alternatives" discussed here and in the Women’s Budget research reflect, instead of completely new ideas, increased support or emphasis for certain existing policy proposals, and reduced emphasis on others.

As discussed briefly above, one of the clearest examples of gender biased expenditure is found in education. As in so many other countries, this sector accounts for the largest proportion of the government budget. Approximately 85% of the total allocated to expenditure goes to primary and secondary education. In comparison with many other Southern African countries, South Africa has high levels of enrolment, although the quality of the education and success rates of scholars is often poor. Like several other Southern African countries, there are slightly more girls than boys enrolled in schools. Further, given limited subject choice in most schools formerly destined for Africans, the subject differences between girls and boys are small.

Higher education accounts for 16% of the government education budget. At this level, too, the number of women now exceeds the number of men. However, there are distinct gender patterns in the courses of studies followed. Men predominate at the technikons, which teach more technical subjects. Overall, women outnumber men at the universities, but they congregate at the distance learning institutions, and in teaching and "softer" social disciplines. Men generally predominate in areas which are more expensive in terms of state allocations, which are increasingly favoured in education and science and technology statements, and which generate higher rewards in later life for graduates. Second, there are still severe race inequalities. Third, the state allocation for each higher education students is many times the size of the average allocations at any other level. Fourth, proposals in respect of a graduate tax to cover some of the interim private cost of education at this level have been around for several years without, it seems, receiving serious consideration by those in power. These proposals acknowledge that many students and their families do not have the requisite funds at the time that they start studying. After graduating, however, these ex-students have incomes which are well above average. The suggestion is that the government subsidise students while they are studying, but claw back the money afterwards through a surcharge on all taxpayers with tertiary qualifications.

Adult basic education and training (ABET) and pre-school provision each receive only about 1% of the education budget. The gender situation in respect of illiteracy has been described above. The benefits of pre-school provision for children - and poor children in particular - need not be enumerated here. The benefits of such provision for women are also obvious in their ability to free women to perform other tasks as well as to provide income for women childcare practitioners. Nevertheless, government provision is in eight of the nine provinces restricted to a single school preparatory year, and in most cases focuses on formal sites which favour privileged areas. A gender-sensitive budget would clearly require reprioritisation in education spending away from the tertiary level and towards ABET and early childhood development.

In some cases the reprioritisation required is not in terms of the amount allocated, but rather in terms of whom this amount reaches. Here examples would include the special employment programmes of which South Africa has several. The Public Works Department runs a nation-wide community-based public works programme which aims to provide basic infrastructure in rural areas at the same time as providing short-term employment and training opportunities. The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry provides short-term employment opportunities when it builds new water supply and sanitation projects. The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry also coordinates a Working for Water programmes in which unemployed people are employed in eradicating alien vegetation in an effort to improve overall water conservation and supply.

These three programmes all provide short- or medium-term employment primarily for people with limited or no formal skills. The programmes are all labour-intensive and all require relatively heavy physical labour. The programmes target similar communities. These communities are largely rural. In South Africa past policies of migrant labour and influx control have created a situation in which rurality is almost always associated with a marked preponderance of women among the adult population.

Despite the similarities, the three programmes have performed very differently in terms of providing jobs for women and men. A national evaluation of the community-based public works programme found that just over 40% of those employed were women. However, women tended to be employed on the more menial jobs. Further, while 37% of the employed men received training, only 32% of the women did. The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry estimated that in 1997 about 14% of those employed and 16% of those who received training on the water and sanitation projects were women. Meanwhile the same Department has ensured that from the beginning over half of all workers on the Working for Water Programme have been women. Gender-sensitive reprioritisation of these expenditure allocations would involve ensuring that the first two programmes adopt the methods employed by Working for Water to ensure that they, likewise, provide both immediate income-earning opportunities in the form of jobs and future income-enhancing opportunities in the form of training to those who need them most.

A third type of reprioritisation involves reduction in the extravagancies and inequalities which still exist in post-apartheid South Africa’s government expenditure. Salary expenditures are among the most obvious of these, although certainly not the only cases in which scarce resources appear to be wasted. The staff extravagances are particularly worrying given government’s commitment to what is officially termed "right-sizing", but which many analysts more crudely term "downsizing".

One of the more startling examples is the staff complement serving the President. Examination of the budget of the Office of the President revealed that in addition to the 108 office staff, the budget allowed for 82 staff members within the President’s household. The latter included 61 cleaners, three food services aides, eight household aides, a general foreman, a storekeeper, three household managers, one guesthouse manager, two household supervisors and two household controllers. The salary of each of these individuals would provide monthly child support grants of R100 for a great number of children.

Alternatively, the amounts could be used to increase the already overstretched complement of inspectors tasked with enforcing the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. The Act, which provides for minimum standards in relation to hours of work, overtime, contracts, and so on, has recently been extended to cover to the hundreds of thousands of women employed as domestic workers. Even before the extension the Department of Labour’s inspectorate was too small to provide anything near adequate inspection and enforcement. With the sudden increase in the number of workers covered, and with most of these workers in separate workplaces, the demands on the inspectorate will multiply.

More generally, top government officials are still earning very high salaries. In 1993 the ratio between highest and lowest pay in the public service was around 25:1. By 1996 this ratio had fallen to 16:1. The gap has thus been reduced, but is still unnecessarily high. Internationally this ratio stands at between 10 and 20 to 1, and one would expect a country such as South Africa, with a strong commitment to equality, to aim at lower ratios. Besides consuming large amounts of money, these gaps disadvantage women relative to men. In 1997 approximately half of all public servants were women, but only 27% of national and 38% of provincial employees at director level or above were women. Women thus predominated among the service providers, but had relatively little decision-making power as to which services should be delivered and how.

Many budget advocacy projects focus on defence expenditure. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom is one such project which has brought together the issues of budgets, women and defence. They have made arguments such as the one above in respect of salary expenses, as to alternative uses for the amounts currently spent on expensive weapons and military machinery.

The South African Women’s Budget Initiative only tackled the defence sector in its third year of research. This delay was the result of a conscious strategic choice. First, the Initiative wanted to excite interest by raising new arguments rather than giving people what they might automatically assume would emerge from such an exercise. Second, South Africa had already, before 1994, started making quite dramatic cuts in defence expenditure. In 1989 the South African government spent at least 15% of its budget on defence. By 1997/8 the proportion allocated to defence had fallen to less than 6%.

Nevertheless, the chapter on defence in The Third Women’s Budget revealed that there were still many things to complain about. In particular, the analysis revealed stark mismatches between the situation in the country, the policy statements and available resources. The chapter argues strongly that the major threat to South African security now comes from inside the country, in the form of poverty and inequality. To the extent that the military argues that they assist in maintenance of internal peace and security, resources should rather be allocated to those sectors - such as the police - which have the specialised skills and capacity to deal with these issues. For the most part, the country should be reallocating resources from maintenance of an aggressive force towards sectors which "attack" the poverty and inequality.

The South African Women’s Budget has an alliance at its heart. It was born when some of the "new" parliamentarians who entered parliament for the first time in 1994 came together with representatives of two non-governmental organisations. The parliamentarians were members of the Joint Standing Committee on Finance which spanned the National Assembly and then Senate. The parliamentarians were eager to ensure that they carried forward their involvement in gender struggle and the more general struggle for equality in their new roles. The two NGOs were involved in policy analysis - one with a specific focus on budgets and the other with experience of gender and social policy analysis.

The two sides of the partnership have been important in ensuring the success of the Initiative to date. The non-governmental organisations have been able to provide the expertise and time necessary to collect information, undertake the research, and produce the analysis. The parliamentarians have provided access to information and focus in terms of key political issues. Further, without the parliamentarians’ strong advocacy voice, the analysis might well have remained to gather dust on the shelves or circulated and been used only within a closed circle of gender activists.

The Initiative’s formal alliances extended beyond these parties. The researchers were drawn from a range of other non-governmental organisations, academic institutions, and elsewhere. They were chosen for their knowledge of a particular sector and of gender issues, and less so on the basis of knowledge of budgets.

The researchers were supported by a reference group. These people were again chosen for their knowledge of particular sectors. They included parliamentarians, government officials, members of non-governmental organisations and others who were too busy to do the research themselves. Instead they were able to provide information and insights, while themselves learning how to combine sectoral, gender and budget analysis in the process.

The individuals involved as researchers and members of the reference group changed each year. In adopting this approach the Initiative was able to benefit from a wider field of experience and reach a wider group of people. Its reaching out also inspired initiatives from other interest groups which have investigated, or plan to investigate, the impact of the budget on groups such as children, rural people, the disabled and the poor. Those so inspired have generally drawn on the expertise and advice of people involved in the Women’s Budget.

The Initiative has made a conscious effort to extend the network of people involved in the project itself. It has, for example, not chosen researchers and reference group members only from people known to the core actors. Instead, through a snowballing reference process, it has drawn on people from a wide range of institutions, and from many different areas of the country. Further, while most of the first year’s researchers were white, over the years the Initiative has drawn on black researchers outside of only from what could have become closed circles.

Many of the Initiative’s informal alliances reflect its support for existing proposals in respect of budget reform and other policy. For example, the South African government - like many others - is currently endeavouring to move towards performance budgeting. A central tenet of performance budgeting is that one measures performance not only in monetary, but also in physical terms. Performance budgeting requires that one looks firstly at inputs. These would include financial, human and other resources allocated to a particular programme or policy. Secondly, one looks at outputs. These are the physical deliverables of the programme or policy and include the number of beneficiaries reached. Finally, one looks out outcomes. These measure the impact of the policies and programmes on the situation and well-being of citizens, for example in their levels of health, income or education.

Government policies and expenditures will usually only have a noticeable effect on outcomes in the medium- to long-term. Further, a particular outcome is usually effected by a range of different policies and external factors. Expenditures and outcomes are therefore difficult to match.

A more realistic task in moving beyond detailing only human and financial inputs, is to measure and monitor outputs. It is here that the gender budget initiative is in line with a reform close to the heart of the Department of Finance. The Initiative however, advocates for an extra dimension to the reform, in requiring gender and other disaggregations of the outputs. Many people outside the initiative have recognised the importance of this call. At heart performance budgeting is about ensuring that government expenditure is efficient - that one is getting value for the inputs allocated. Disaggregation of outputs ensures that the expenditure is efficient in the sense of being well-targeted. It also allows monitoring of the equity of allocations. Such monitoring should be important to both government and civil society players.

The fluid situation in South Africa has contributed to the range of alliances. Since 1994 those who previously worked together in opposition organisations have entered a wide range of previously undreamed-of positions. There are thus close networks which extend from cabinet ministers, through parliamentarians, government officials at all levels, and key non-governmental people. Further, because women were involved pre-1994 in virtually all oppositional organisations, the links allow gender activists to reach a wide range of people who were and are less vocal in respect of gender issues.

The major movement into the new positions occurred in the first years post-1994. Through the life of the Initiative there have, however, been further moves which have increased its influence. For example, the current Deputy Minister of Finance, Gill Marcus, was previously the chairperson of the Joint Standing Committee of Finance. She was very supportive of the Initiative when she was chairperson and in her new position has been a champion of in the inside-government exercise. The current Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, was one of the more vocal supporters of the Initiative when it was first launched. Since her promotion she has actively encouraged the Department to utilise the findings of the research, particularly in respect of small, medium and micro-enterprises. Maria Ramos, now Director-General (Principal Secretary) of Finance, was a senior official in the Department when the Initiative was first launched, and served on the reference group for the first two years. She is now the senior official ultimately responsible for the inside-government initiative. Neva Seidman Makgetla, now deputy Director General of the Department of Public Service and Administration, was with a non-governmental research organisation when she first served as reference group member, and was an official in the Department of Labour when she co-authored one of the chapters of the second book. She is now only one removed from the top position in the department with overall responsibility for all public servants.

The first and probably most important lesson of the Women’s Budget Initiative to date is that there is no easy and quick recipe for undertaking gender analysis of the budget. Each new researcher on the project, and every individual who has tried to engage with the Initiative or its findings, has soon recognised both the richness of what it reveals but also the complexity of what it is trying to do. Budgets have always been regarded as gender-neutral instruments and have been drawn up as such. They were not designed to reveal gender, or most other, disaggregations. Determining the impacts requires hard work, perseverance and imagination.

This type of initiative will also not result in quick or immediate changes. Often the first round of analysis reveals the gaps in our knowledge as much as anything else. In the medium-term, at least, the achievement of such initiatives will lie largely in the processes and procedures which they can put in place in terms of gender-disaggregated data on outputs, more specific and gender-aware specification of targets, and so on. Quick changes in policy will be few and far between. Speedily-realised benefits in terms of gender equity in outcome will be even slower in coming.

A second lesson is the strength which the Initiative has derived from being located both inside and outside government and - outside government - from the collaboration between parliamentarians and non-governmental organisations. The latter collaboration has ensured that the research is used effectively in lobbying and advocacy in powerful places. It has ensured, also, that advocates are rendered more powerful by strong arguments on which to base their case. The parallel initiative inside and outside government will, hopefully, avoid a repeat of the Australian experience. There the exercise was confined to government and, without lobbying from outside, has gradually been whittled down to what has been described as a public relations exercise.

Government cannot be expected to produce a cutting critique of its own activities. What can be demanded is that it provide information, and that it report honestly on what it is doing, what it hopes to do, and what difficulties it is experiencing in achieving its aims. Those outside government can utilise the information generated by government, they can engage with what it presents, and suggest alternatives. Methodologically and politically those outside government are freer to experiment in generating new ways of investigating and understanding the gender impact of budgets.

A third lesson is that gender budget analysis is best learned through practical engagement. Experience inside South Africa and in disseminating the ideas to other countries has demonstrated the importance of incorporating practical experience in helping people to understand what gender budget analysis is about.

This is particularly true when it comes to involving government. In many countries civil servants have been exposed to gender training which aims to make them sensitive to gender issues and the gender inequalities in their society. Often this training appears to remain at a fairly general level. For example, participants might look at the difference between sex and gender, at different roles of women and men, at their own prejudices and stereotyping practices, and so on. Participants emerge from such training sessions with varying degrees of commitment. Yet often, it seems, even those who are convinced and committed are unsure how they can express that commitment in carrying out their daily tasks. This difficulty is particularly acute in the more specialised sectoral areas of work. Gender budget training provides an opportunity for specialists to get practical experience of what gender-sensitive work might look like. It allows gender commitment to go beyond commitment to implementation, in however small a way.

South Africa has three spheres of government - national, provincial and local. The word spheres is preferred to levels, as the latter suggests a hierarchy which the Constitution and the government is keen to diminish. Nevertheless, at present there remains a clear hierarchy in terms of the levels of development of the three spheres, and the levels of capacity and sophistication in all levels of operation, including budgets. The local sphere is particularly weak in the more impoverished rural areas, most of which have no tax base of their own and are completely dependent on grants from other spheres.

The powers of different spheres of government are determined by the Constitution. The national sphere is responsible for overall policy formation, and for most of the security and economic functions such as police, defence, land affairs and trade and industry. The provincial sphere is responsible for the bulk of the major basic social services such as health, education and welfare. The local sphere has fewer powers than in many other countries. A primary focus at this sphere is the provision of services such as water, sanitation and electricity. Richer municipalities provide a far wider range of services, while poorer ones cannot even provide the basics.

In its first three years the South African Women’s Budget Initiative focused on the national sphere and, to a more limited extent, the provincial one. This year, in response to many requests from local councillors and others, the Initiative is doing pilot research on local government budgets. There are currently over 800 municipalities in the country, although there are plans to reduce the number to around 500. The pilot research is focusing on five of these municipalities - one large city, two middle-sized towns, and two very rural councils. The five municipalities in question are spread across four of the nine provinces. It is hoped that this sample will provide some indication of the diversity of situations which might be encountered.

Most of the researchers for the local government research work for non-government organisations involved in the training of local councillors. The Initiative plans to produce a popular book on local government as soon as possible after the research is completed so that local councillors, many of whom have minimal education, as well as others can use the findings and methods in their own areas.

Another area of research during the fourth year of the Initiative is donor funding to government. Compared to other Southern African countries the South African government derives only a small proportion - about 2% - of its revenue from outside sources. The approximately 30 donors include individual countries as well as multilateral institutions. Unlike many other developing countries, South Africa does not include these amounts when reporting on its budget.

While the total amount of aid is small, the omission could slant the overall picture. Anecdotal evidence suggests that aid is concentrated on certain sectors - such as education - and on certain geographical areas. These include both the most advanced ones, which are seen as more likely to use the money efficiently, and those who are poorest. The more "average" areas might meanwhile be losing out.

The Women’s Budget research will attempt to reveal these biases, as well as any specific gender ones. The Initiative hopes that the research will add to the still muted calls for budgeting formats to be amended to include these revenues. Until that is done, those inside and outside government will be less able to judge accurately how well they are prioritising and targeting those people and issues which they intended to.

The production of popular material reflects a growing realisation within the Initiative of the necessity of making the material accessible to a wider audience. As noted above, one of the downfalls of the Australian experience was the lack of pressure and interest from outside government. In South Africa the danger of minimal civil society involvement is increased by the low levels of economic, numeric and general literacy in the country. Within civil society the Initiative runs the danger of being confined to a relatively small elite.

Many of the researchers within the Initiative come into the project with fear and feelings of inadequacy in the face of having to deal with figures and budgets. Researchers lose this fear through their involvement through the support of the project and under pressure to deliver. Those without this close involvement are likely to have the same fears, but to lack the same incentives to press beyond them.

The popular books will address this problem to some extent. Given a limited reading culture and limited education, the books will not reach the full potential audience. The Initiative defines the latter broadly as all organised women (and some men), whatever the forms of their organisations.

The Initiative has plans to work with the Gender Education and Training Network (GETNET) to develop materials that can be used both in focused gender budget workshops and for sessions in other training events. GETNET is a non-governmental organisation with brings together gender trainers from around the country. Several people associated with GETNET have served on reference groups over the years of the Initiative. While the Network’s staff is small, its members operate in a wide range of teaching situations. They offer the opportunity of increasing the audience of the Initiative.

The materials will be developed through collaborative working sessions which bring together researchers who have been involved in the Initiative and a team of gender trainers. The process will include a training-of-trainers component which will produce a core team of people who can take the message further. The materials themselves will complement the more detailed and technical material contained in a gender budget manual developed for government officials under the auspices of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s gender budget project (Budlender, Sharp and Allen, 1998).

7. CONCLUSION

South Africa often likes to consider itself a special case in respect of political and other developments. There is certainly a range of factors in South Africa which have contributed to the success of the Women’s Budget Initiative. The Initiative occurred at the right time in terms of the fluidity of the situation which provided the oft-cited "window of opportunity". With a new government in office, and a new parliament at the helm, there were many people in powerful positions who were both eager to make changes and who felt no need to be defensive about a situation which they were able to blame on apartheid leaders. Further, for the first time a significant number of the occupants of powerful positions were black and/or female. Many of them came into their positions with a firm commitment to show that they could make real some of the aspirations which they and their colleagues had voiced during the apartheid years. The Initiative was initiated in the context of a Constitution and political culture strongly supportive of promoting gender as well as other forms of equality. The Initiative was able to draw on a wide range of political and other organisational and personal alliances built up during the apartheid years of strong organisation.

The alacrity with which other counties have introduced their own gender budget initiatives suggests that these special circumstances do not make South Africa a unique case in terms of gender budget possibilities. Interest in the initiative has been particularly strong in the Southern African regions. This could partly reflect similarities in terms of severe financial constraints, as well as a situation of ongoing budget reforms which provide space for new perspectives. There has also, however, been interest from other continents, as well as from developed countries.

The initiatives in the various countries differ on many counts. They differ in their scope - which sectors are addressed, whether revenue is included, whether the exercise focuses only on national budgets, and so on. They differ in respect of site - whether they occur inside government, within parliament, with non-governmental organisations, within academia, or across a range of these sites. They differ in method and in the level of technical detail. These differences are appropriate. The budget is an intensely national issue - it reflects the overall policy and priorities of a government and its people. The differences are particularly appropriate in these early years of development and experimentation, where countries can share with each other their failures and successes in determining what is being allocated and how these patterns are contributing to or remedying gender injustices.

Budlender D (ed) (1996) The Women’s Budget Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa

Budlender D (ed) (1997) The Second Women’s Budget Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa

Budlender D (ed) (1998) The Third Women’s Budget Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa

Budlender D, Sharp R and Allen K (forthcoming) How to do a gender-sensitive budget analysis: Contemporary research and practice Australian Agency for International Development and the Commonwealth Secretariat

Elson D (1997) "Gender-Neutral, Gender-Blind, or Gender-Sensitive Budgets?: Changing the conceptual framework to include women’s empowerment and the economy of care" Preparatory Country Mission to Integrate Gender into National Budgetary Policies and Procedures, London: Commonwealth Secretariat

Hurt K & Budlender D (1998) Money Matters: Women and the government budget Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa

Sharp R and Broomhill R (1998) "Government Budgets and Women: Shaking the foundations?" in M Sawer (editor) Policy Makers and Policy Shakers Sydney: Allen and Unwin