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EG-S-GB (2004) RAP FIN

Gender budgeting

Final report of the Group of specialistson gender budgeting (EG-S-GB)

Directorate General of Human RightsStrasbourg, 2005

Equality DivisionDirectorate General of Human RightsCouncil of EuropeF-67075 Strasbourg Cedex

© Council of Europe, 2005

Printed at the Council of Europe

The Council of Europe

The Council of Europe is a politi-cal organisation which was foundedon 5 May 1949 by ten European coun-tries in order to promote greaterunity between its members. It nownumbers 46 European states.1

The main aims of the Organisationare to promote democracy, humanrights and the rule of law, and todevelop common responses to politi-cal, social, cultural and legal chal-lenges in its member states. Since1989 it has integrated most of thecountries of central and easternEurope and supported them in theirefforts to implement and consolidatetheir political, legal and administra-tive reforms.

The Council of Europe has its per-manent headquarters in Strasbourg(France). By Statute, it has two con-stituent organs: the Committee ofMinisters, composed of the Minis-ters of Foreign Affairs of the 46

member states, and the Parliamen-tary Assembly, comprising delega-tions from the 46 nationalparliaments The Congress of Localand Regional Authorities of Europerepresents the entities of local andregional self-government within themember states.

The European Court of HumanRights is the judicial body competentto adjudicate complaints broughtagainst a state by individuals, associ-ations or other contracting states onground of violation of the EuropeanConvention on Human Rights.

The Council of Europe and equality between women and men

The consideration of equalitybetween women and men, seen as afundamental human right, is the re-sponsibility of the Steering Commit-tee for Equality between Women andMen (CDEG). The experts who form

the Committee (one from eachmember state) are entrusted with thetask of stimulating action at the na-tional level, as well as within theCouncil of Europe, to achieve effec-tive equality between women and

men. To this end, the CDEG carriesout analyses, studies and evaluations,defines strategies and political meas-ures, and, where necessary, framesthe appropriate legal instruments.

For information on the activities of the Council of Europe in the field of equality between women and men pleaseconsult our Web site: http://www.coe.int/equality/

Equality DivisionDirectorate General of Human RightsCouncil of EuropeF-67075 Strasbourg Cedex

Tel. +33 (0)388 41 20 00 — Fax +33 (0)3 88 41 27 05 — e-mail [email protected]

1. Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria,Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herze-govina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, CzechRepublic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,France, Georgia, Germany, Greece,Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg,Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Netherlands,Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania,Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbiaand Montenegro, Slovak Republic, Slove-nia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, “theformer Yugoslav Republic of Macedo-nia”, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

Contents
Introduction
The Council of Europe and gender mainstreaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The Council of Europe and Gender Budgeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

What is gender budgeting?

Background history . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Definition and scope . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Prerequisites and principles . . . . . 12

Implementing gender budgeting

Players involved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The various stages of the budget process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Tools and methods for gender budgeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Evaluation of gender budgeting initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Table: Incorporating a gender perspective in the public budget process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Example of guidelines for starting a gender budgeting initiative

Why start a gender budgeting initiative? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Organising a gender budgeting initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Planning a gender budgeting initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Gender based assessment . . . . . . . 26

Visibility of gender in the government’s budget proposition: expected outcomes. . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Examples of gender budgeting initiatives in Council of Europe member states

Austria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Belgium. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Norway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Sweden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Switzerland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

United Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Nordic Council of Ministers . . . . . 35

Appendix I

Members of the Group of Specialists on Gender Budgeting (EG-S-GB) . 37

Appendix II

Terms of reference of the Group of Specialists on Gender Budgeting (EG-S-GB) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Appendix III

Questionnaire on gender budgeting sent to the members of the CDEG 39

Appendix to the questionnaire form for the presentation of gender budgeting projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Appendix IV

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

5

Introduction

The Council of Europe and gender mainstreaming

The Council of Europe has a cru-cial role to play in promoting genderequality in its member states, forexample by defining common princi-ples and standards to promote the fullparticipation of women and men insociety.

Even if women have obtained dejure equality and equal status withmen in the majority of Europeancountries, they are still discriminatedagainst in many areas. Legislation tocombat discrimination and promoteequal treatment has been passed andgender equality policy machinerieshave been set up to monitor the situ-ation.

But gender inequalities continueto influence all walks of life and it isbecoming increasingly clear that newapproaches, new strategies and newmethods are needed to reach the goalof gender equality. Gender main-streaming is one of these strategies.

The concept of gender main-streaming appeared for the first timein international texts after the UnitedNations Third World Conference onWomen (Nairobi, 1985), in the debateon the role of women in develop-ment. The Platform for Actionadopted at the Fourth World Confer-ence on Women (Beijing, 1995) callsfor the promotion of gender main-streaming, stating that “governmentsand other actors should promote anactive and visible policy of mainstream-ing a gender perspective in all policiesand programmes, so that, before deci-sions are taken, an analysis is made of

the effects on women and men, respec-tively.”

Since then, efforts have beenmade by countries at local, regionaland national level to introducegender mainstreaming. Internationalorganisations, notably the UnitedNations, the Council of Europe, theEuropean Union and the NordicCouncil of Ministers, have played anactive role by disseminating informa-tion, organising conferences andintroducing the strategy in their ownstructures.

The Council of Europe set up aGroup of specialists on gender main-streaming (EG-S-MS) in 1995 under theauspices of the Steering Committeefor Equality between Women andMen (CDEG).1 The final report of theGroup, published in 1998,2 includes adefinition of gender mainstreaming,describes the origin of gender main-streaming and the way in which itrelates to specific gender equalitypolicies. It discusses the problemsthat might occur when implementinggender mainstreaming and explainswhy this strategy is important. Thereport lists the necessary prerequi-sites for implementing mainstream-ing and gives examples of goodpractices.

Gender mainstreaming wasdefined as follows:

Gender mainstreaming is the (re)or-

ganisation, improvement, develop-

ment and evaluation of policy

processes, so that a gender equality per-

spective is incorporated in all policies

at all levels and all stages, by the actors

normally involved in policy-making.

Following this Report, the Councilof Europe’s Committee of Ministersadopted a Recommendation on gendermainstreaming in October 1998.3 Thetext recommends that governmentsdisseminate the report widely andencourage its use as a tool for imple-menting the strategy in the publicand private sectors. It also adopted aMessage to the steering committees ofthe Council of Europe inviting them todraw inspiration from the report ofthe CDEG and implement the strat-egy in their programmes of activities.

Gender mainstreaming remainedone of the priority areas for the CDEGand for the Council of Europe’s workon gender equality, with efforts beingmade at various levels to find newways of integrating this dimensioninto other steering committees’ pro-grammes and to favour its use atnational level.

The CDEG launched a pilot projectin 2001 with four other steering com-mittees4 to examine how genderequality relates to the fields dealtwith by different committees and

1. The CDEG is an intergovernmental commit-tee composed of one representative of eachof the 46 member States of the Council ofEurope.

2. Gender mainstreaming – Conceptual frame-work, methodology and presentation of goodpractices. Final activity report of the Groupof Specialists on Mainstreaming (EG-S-MS)(EG-S-MS (98) 2 rev)

3. Recommendation No. R (98) 14 of the Com-mittee of Ministers to member states ongender mainstreaming.

Introduction 7

how a gender perspective could beintroduced into their work. A practi-cal follow-up to this project was aSeminar on gender mainstreaming insocial services in December 2002,organised jointly by the CDEG andthe European Committee for SocialCohesion (CDCS). One of the aims ofthe seminar was to provide practicalinformation on gender mainstream-ing for the new Group of Specialistson User Involvement in Social Serv-ices which started work in 2003.

The CDEG has also been con-cerned with the issue of genderequality in the context of educationand set up a Group of specialists onpromoting gender mainstreaming inschools (EG-S-GS) in co-operationwith the Steering Committee on Edu-cation (CD-ED) with the task of eval-

uating existing policies and practicesin this area, in order to devise newways and means of promoting gendermainstreaming in the school system,through teacher training, curriculaand materials, as well as in teachingmethods and learning contexts. Thefinal report of the Group5 had beenadopted by the CDEG in November2004. This report proposed guidelinesfor setting up strategies to promotegender mainstreaming in schools.The CDEG and the CD-ED are nowpreparing a recommendation on thepromotion of gender mainstreamingin schools.

The CDEG also worked with theCongress of Local and RegionalAuthorities of the Council of Europein the field of gender mainstreamingat local and regional level. A meetingof the Informal network of the Coun-cil of Europe on gender mainstream-

ing was organised on this issue inSeptember 2003. This meeting wasfollowed by a hearing on Fosteringawareness of gender equality issues atthe local and regional levels: gendermainstreaming in municipalities andregions organised by Congress’ Com-mittee on Social Cohesion in March2004 to which the CDEG was invitedto participate. As a result to this jointco-operation, Resolution 176 (2004)and Recommendation 148 (2004) ongender mainstreaming at local andregional level: a strategy to promoteequality between women and men incities and regions had been adopted bythe Congress during its plenary ses-sion in May 2004.

Pursuing its strategy to includegender mainstreaming in the work ofother sectors of the Council of Eur-ope, the CDEG started in 2005 a co-operation with a new Expert Commit-tee on the inclusion of gender differ-ences in health policy set up by theEuropean Health Committee (CDSP).

The Council of Europe and Gender Budgeting

On the basis of the above-men-tioned activities and as part of itsresearch work on the situation ofgender equality and gender main-streaming in the Council of Europemember states, the CDEG decided tolook more closely at the differentmethods available for implementingthe strategy of gender mainstreamingand agreed that gender budgetingshould be a priority, since the budgetis important as a policy and planninginstrument for governments. It set upan Informal group of experts ongender budgeting in November 2002,with the aim of preparing an inven-tory including a definition of genderbudgeting, a methodology for itsimplementation and examples ofpractices at local, regional andnational level.

The Informal group of experts ongender budgeting met in Strasbourgin November 2002, March 2003 andNovember 2003. Following a decisionby the CDEG it became the Group ofspecialists on gender budgeting (EG-S-GB), whose terms of reference wereadopted by the Committee of Minis-ters on 31 March 2004. The EG-S-GB

met twice, in May 2004 and October2004.

The present report is the result ofthree meetings of the Informal groupof experts on gender budgeting and oftwo meetings of the Group of special-ists on gender budgeting (EG-S-GB).The group of specialists was com-posed of six experts: one member ofthe CDEG and five experts in the fieldof gender budgeting (see list of mem-bers in Appendix I, p. 37).

Under its terms of reference (seeAppendix II, p. 38), the group of spe-cialists was instructed to draft guide-lines for member states which are inthe process of introducing genderbudgeting or are considering reformsin this field.

The Informal group started itswork by developing a definition ofgender budgeting (see below) andpreparing a questionnaire (AppendixIII, p. 39) to collect information onthis issue and as far as possible con-crete examples of gender budgetinginitiatives in the Council of Europe’smember states. This questionnairewas sent to the members of the CDEGon 20 December 2002 and replies

were requested for 30 January 2003.Replies have been received only from11 countries out of 45 Council ofEurope member states. Four coun-tries (Belgium-Flemish community,Estonia, Poland and Slovakia)informed the Secretariat that no par-ticular initiatives in the field ofgender budgeting had been under-taken. The few replies received to thequestionnaire indicated that genderbudgeting was a rather new topic andthat the concept of gender budgeting,as it had been defined by the group,was at a very early stage in mostmember states, most of the initiativescurrently under way being at locallevel.

Some countries mentioned spe-cific budgets devoted to the promo-tion of equality between women andmen which did not as such constitutean application of gender mainstream-ing in the budgetary process.

In those countries where morespecific gender budgeting initiativeshad been launched, these consistedmainly of a gender-based assessmentof certain policy and budget areas. Asmost projects were under way, little

4. European Committee for Social Cohesion(CDCS); European Health Committee(CDSP); Committee for the Development ofSport (CDDS); Ad Hoc Committee ofExperts on Legal Aspects of Territorial Asy-lum, Refugees and Stateless Persons(CAHAR).

5. Promoting gender mainstreaming in schools –Final report of the Group of Specialists onpromoting gender mainstreaming inschools (EG-S-GS (2004) RAP FIN)

8 Gender budgeting

or no information was given on theresults of the assessment and howthese results could be used to securea more gender-sensitive use of budg-ets.

The main obstacles encounteredin the implementation of genderbudgeting initiatives appeared to belack of political will and difficulties inobtaining gender-disaggregated data.

In summary, it could be said thatdue to the very few replies as well asthe very early stage on the imple-mentation of these projects, thereplies to the questionnaire could notbe exploited in the group of special-ists’ work.

The group also focused on prepar-ing an inventory on gender budgetingin order to provide guidelines and aflexible framework for gender budget-ing initiatives that can be adapted tovarying national contexts. The workof the group is presented in thisreport.

The main objectives of the reportare to raise awareness and provideinformation about gender budgetingin order to encourage its application,thereby contributing to the promo-tion of gender equality. The reportfocuses on how to organise genderbudgeting processes and methodolo-gies and how to apply its methodsand tools. It provides a flexible frame-work for use by countries dependingon their specific situations andpresents practical examples of genderbudgeting. The report gives an over-view of gender budgeting initiativesand practices in different countries(Part III), thus offering a wide selec-tion of material to be used accordingto national circumstances. It does not

provide countries with a fixed blue-print or tailor-made toolkit, which isneither possible nor expedient giventhat budgetary processes are highlycountry-specific. Countries willtherefore need to experiment to somedegree and take initiatives of theirown, which will obviously help toensure full country ownership.

Many European governments arecurrently restructuring budgetaryprocesses, moving from input andincremental budgeting to more objec-tive and results-oriented forms ofbudgeting. While the latter do notautomatically lead to gender-sensi-tive budgeting, their underlying prin-ciple of comparing inputs andoutputs creates windows of opportu-nities for the introduction of genderbudgeting.

During the United Nations FourthWorld Conference on Women in Bei-jing, the Platform for Action recom-mended governments, in 1995, tosystematically review public sectorexpenditures and adjust budgets toensure gender equality concerningaccess to expenditure. Since then,gender budgeting has become aninternationally recognised strategyfor enhancing gender equality. TheCouncil of Europe’s focus on genderbudgeting therefore stands alongsideother international organisations’efforts to promote gender budgeting.Numerous multilateral agencies cur-rently further gender budgeting bysupporting research, providing tech-nical assistance to gender budgetinginitiatives and disseminating infor-mation.

Among these, the CommonwealthSecretariat, which supported a large-

scale pilot project on gender budgetinitiatives in Commonwealth coun-tries during the 1990s, the UnitedNations Development Fund forWomen (UNIFEM) and other UNdepartments and agencies, in particu-lar the United Nations DevelopmentProgram (UNDP), play a leading role.Furthermore, the Organisation forEconomic Co-operation and Develop-ment (OECD), the World Bank and,more recently, the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) and the NordicCouncil of Ministers have a growingrecord of support for gender budgetdevelopment and implementation.6

In its work on gender budgeting,the Council of Europe has co-oper-ated with the European Commis-sion’s Advisory Committee on EqualOpportunities for Women and Menand the Nordic Council of Ministers.

In 2003, after a public hearing onGender budgeting – the gender perspec-tive in public budgets in the EuropeanParliament, the European Parlia-ment’s Committee on Women’sRights and Equal Opportunities pub-lished a report and resolution of theEuropean Parliament, and the Euro-pean Commission’s Advisory Com-mittee on Equal Opportunities forWomen and Men prepared an opin-ion on gender budgeting at EuropeanCommission level. This opinion, pub-lished in 2003, endorsed the defini-tion adopted by the Informal Groupof experts of the Council of Europe

6. For further international organisations sup-porting gender budgeting and Web sites, seeAppendix IV, p. 43.

Introduction 9

What is gender budgeting?

Background history

In 1984, Australia introduced thefirst gender budgeting initiative.Taking budgets as essential instru-ments for promoting gender equality,pioneering analysis of the impact ofpublic budgets on gender relationswas carried out. The Australian exam-ple was not only crucial in raisingawareness, but its approach served asan important point of reference forlater gender budgeting initiatives.

Every year since 1989, the BritishWomen’s Budget Group (WBG), con-sisting of experts from universities,unions and NGOs, has publishedcomments on the national budget.Their focus is on assessing taxes and

transfers, but they also refer con-stantly to the importance of “engen-dering” economic policies.

In 1993 the Women’s InternationalLeague for Peace and Freedom(WILPF) established a gender budget-ing initiative in Canada. Based on analternative concept of security, theinitiative focused on welfare anddefence expenditure.

Despite the British and Canadianefforts, until recently most projectshad been carried out in the southernhemisphere, often encouraged andsupported by international organisa-tions. One of the most prominentexamples is probably South Africa’s

Women’s Budget Initiative, estab-lished after the first democratic elec-tions in 1995.

But in Europe Britain’s genderbudgeting initiative remained iso-lated until the end of the 1990s, whenFrance started publishing the “jaunebudgétaire”, followed by other newgender budgeting initiatives emerg-ing in several European countries.Gender budgeting now takes place inmore than 40 countries all over theworld. It is initiated and conducted ina wide variety of ways.

A bibliography and a list of Websites on gender budgeting may befound in Appendix IV, p. 42.

Definition and scope

Taking into account the definitionof gender mainstreaming agreed bythe Council of Europe’s Group of spe-cialists on gender mainstreaming, thefollowing definition of gender budget-ing was drawn up by the CDEG’sInformal group of experts on genderbudgeting:

Gender budgeting is an application of

gender mainstreaming in the budget-

ary process. It means a gender-based as-

sessment of budgets, incorporating a

gender perspective at all levels of the

budgetary process and restructuring

revenues and expenditures in order to

promote gender equality.

Public budgets are not merely eco-nomic tools, but summarise policiesin monetary terms and express politi-cal priorities. Budgets, therefore, arenot gender-neutral. They affect

women and men in different ways,reflecting the uneven distribution ofpower within society as economicdisparities, different living conditionsand ascribed social roles. Genderbudgeting seeks to make the genderimpact of budgets visible and to trans-form them into an instrumentincreasing gender equality. Genderbudgeting basically involves all levelsof government, national, regional andlocal. Gender budgeting thus involvesall stages of the budgetary processand implies gender-sensitive analy-sis, assessment and restructuring ofbudgets.

Instead of gender budget(ing) theterms gender-responsive, gender-aware or gender-sensitive budget andwomen’s budget may be used as syn-onyms. Gender budgeting does not

mean a separate budget for women. Itis not limited to budgetary allocationstargeting equal opportunity policiesor promoting women, but encom-passes the entire budget, revenues aswell as expenditures.

It is also important to stress thatgender budgeting is an integral partof gender mainstreaming. If gendermainstreaming is to be effected inpractice, then budgets must be exam-ined together with policy. If the gapbetween policy and resource alloca-tion, which has been revealed inalmost all gender budget initiatives todate, is to be filled, then budget-making and policy-making must becarried out in close collaboration.

Gender budgeting, therefore, is notlimited to particular policy areas, butall policy fields should be in principle

10 Gender budgeting

the subject of gender budgeting. Inpractice however, gender budgetinginitiatives might start by limitingtheir scope to specific policy areas ormeasures in order to develop appro-priate models and tools and to gainexperience and expertise for large-scale approaches. This has forinstance been the case in Sweden,where a gender budgeting pilotproject started in 2003, encompassingthree policy areas. In 2004 the workleft the project stage and became partof the routine work of the govern-ment, which launched the genderbudgeting process in all its policyareas.

An overall perspective on andanalysis of relations between policyareas and the mutual effects of policymeasures are an important compo-nent of gender budgeting. The follow-ing levels of analysis should be cov-ered by gender budget initiatives:aggregate macro-economic strategies,the composition and structure ofexpenditures and revenues and theeffectiveness of service delivery(Elson 2002). Analysis at all theselevels should take the care economyinto account.

Neglected by orthodox economics,the care economy constitutes an inte-gral part of the economy, alongsidethe profit-oriented market and thepublic services sectors. It refers tounpaid production and services inthe private sphere of the family,neighbourhood or local community,mainly based on women’s unpaidwork.1

Public budgets normally take intoaccount only the monetary economy.As a result, unpaid care and servicesare excluded from the macro-eco-nomic framework of state budgets.Feminist economists and genderbudget analysts such as RhondaSharp and Diane Elson have drawnattention to the “false economy”involved in neglecting the care econ-omy. Cuts in public services, forexample, lead to additional pressureon the care economy, which has to

provide these services instead, sincethe market economy either does notprovide them or only at high cost. Asa consequence, women in particularhave to perform more unpaid work,resulting in reduced employmentprospects and, in many cases, a lackof social security. Incorporating thecare economy into economic policiesin general and gender budgeting inparticular therefore results in a muchbroader and more appropriateapproach to welfare efficiency, costsand benefits than traditional eco-nomic concepts.

Gender budgeting may be initiatedby a variety of players inside or out-side government. NGOs and inde-pendent researchers can often playan important role in taking the firststeps towards gender budgeting, butwithout a positive governmentalresponse leading to implementation,the impact of outside-government ini-tiatives will necessarily be limited.This report is addressed to Council ofEurope member states and its focus istherefore on inside-government initi-atives.

Objectives

Gender equality

The fundamental objective ofgender budgeting refers to refiningbudgets and related policies with aview to promoting gender equality asan integral part of human rights.Gender budgeting makes the gender-specific effects of budgets visible and

raises awareness about their fre-quently implicit dimensions of dis-crimination against women. Genderbudgeting thus identifies the gender-specific implications of publicfinance – which is usually presentedas gender-neutral – and, in particular,

economic policies. Gender budgeting

is therefore regarded as a core strat-

egy for raising awareness and under-

standing of gender issues and the

gender impacts of budgets and poli-

cies.

Accountability

Gender budgeting is a crucial toolfor monitoring gender mainstream-ing activities, because public budgetsinvolve all policy areas. Gender budg-ets therefore are “a mechanism forestablishing whether a government’s

gender equality commitments translateinto budgetary commitments” (Sharp/Broomhill 2002, 26). Gender budget-ing can consequently be seen as anessential instrument for establishinggender mainstreaming within gov-

ernment policies and assigning clearresponsibilities, making governmentsaccountable for their gender policycommitments.

Transparency and participation

Furthermore, gender budgetingincreases the transparency of, andparticipation in, the budget process.It aims at democratising budgetaryprocesses as well as budget policy ingeneral. Gender-responsive budget

initiatives can contribute to the grow-ing practice of public consultation onand participation in the preparationof budgets and in monitoring theiroutcomes and impact, particularlyensuring that women are not

excluded from this process, therebystrengthening economic and finan-cial governance by promoting trans-parency.

1. According to the UNDP (Human Develop-ment Report 1995), the value of unpaid pro-duction amounts to at least 50 per cent ofGNP. In industrialised countries, two thirdsof women’s working time is spent in unpaidwork, only one third in paid work. By con-trast, men’s working time is spent two-thirds in paid work, only one-third inunpaid work. In developing countries thedistribution is even more skewed.

What is gender budgeting? 11

Efficiency and effectiveness

Gender budgeting also contributesto better targeting of policy measuresand hence to the pursuit of effective-ness and efficiency. To reach politicalgoals and to raise and spend scarceresources effectively and efficiently

governments should take intoaccount that women and men,because of their unequal social posi-tions and ascribed social roles, mighthave different wants and needs andthat they might react differently to

apparently gender-neutral measures.

Gender budgeting ensures this spe-

cific gender awareness and is conse-

quently an important step towards

good economic governance.

Good governance

Since gender inequalities lead tomajor losses in social cohesion, eco-nomic efficiency and human devel-opment, gender budgeting can beregarded as an important strategy in

the pursuit of equal citizenship and afair distribution of resources, helpingto redress inequalities and to reducepoverty. Gender-responsive budgetsare therefore a tool for strengthening

not only good economic and financialgovernance, but good governance ingeneral.

Prerequisites and principles

Political will, accountability, allo-cation of specific human and finan-cial resources, co-ordination of infor-mation and training and availability

of gender-disaggregated data can beregarded as preconditions of genderbudgeting. Transparency, partnershipand co-operation throughout the

budgeting process are key principlesof gender budgeting.

Political will

Political will is a key preconditionif gender budget initiatives are to besuccessful. Active political commit-ment to promoting gender equalityand recognition of gender budgetingas an important strategy contributingto gender equality goals are abso-lutely necessary for effective genderbudgeting. Political will in particular

involves advocacy and awarenessraising within appropriate politicalfora such as national parliaments,regional and local assemblies, theirconsultative bodies, and political par-ties. The commitment of the Govern-ment is crucial and requires theactive support of all Cabinet mem-bers to ensure that the issue is rou-

tinely addressed at budget meetings.Furthermore, clear instructions andappropriate follow-up by the Govern-ment administration are crucial.Only if gender budgeting is pursuedwith a sense of political commitmentand given political priority can itaccomplish its aims.

Accountability

Political will should translate intoaccountability. Governments need tobe held accountable for their nationaland international commitments togender mainstreaming in general andgender budgeting more specifically.Parliaments are in a core position to

question and even to instruct govern-ments on budgetary matters. NGOsand other civil society groups and themedia can raise awareness and mobi-lise citizens to demand accountabilityand fair raising and distribution ofpublic resources. Furthermore, pre-

cise definitions of the goals and pro-cedures of gender budgetingstrengthen accountability, which alsoimplies clear gender budgetingresponsibilities within the adminis-tration and its related agencies andbodies.

Human and financial resources

Political will should also translateinto human and financial resourcesfor necessary analysis, co-ordinationand capacity-building. The provisionof these resources calls for activehigh-level political commitment. Suc-

cessful gender budgeting calls foranalysis and research, which cannotbe provided in addition to regular jobduties. Additional qualified personneland financial resources to carry outresearch, develop necessary exper-

tise, train officials and co-ordinate thegender budget process are thereforeprerequisites of successful genderbudgeting.

Co-ordination

In order to collect and exchangedata and maintain a continuous flowof information among all playersinvolved, co-ordination throughoutthe budget process is crucial for suc-cessful gender budgeting. Co-ordina-tion should involve training, clear

instructions and guidelines for imple-mentation, monitoring and consulta-tion throughout the budget cycle. Co-ordination further involves the gath-ering and systematisation of data,methods, tools and good examples,facilitating the exchange of experi-

ences. In order to ensure effective co-ordination it might be necessary toinstitutionalise a specific co-ordina-tion unit within the administration.Its location would ideally be withinthe Ministry of Finance and/orBudget, in close co-operation with the

12 Gender budgeting

appropriate national mechanism forgender equality. As the necessary

gender budgeting expertise may notbe available within the administra-

tion, close co-operation with externalexperts might be useful.

Gender-disaggregated data

Gender-disaggregated data is a keyprerequisite for gender budgetingand a necessary basis for assessingthe gender impact of policies in gen-eral. National statistics, managementinformation systems in line minis-tries and public agencies, andresearch institutes play a crucial rolein providing this basis. Gender-disag-gregated data refers not only to mon-

etary gender disparities and inequali-ties related to the market economy,but must include amongst others thedistribution of unpaid work betweenwomen and men, on which time-usestudies should provide data. Further-more, gender-disaggregated datashould not focus on quantitativedimensions only, but also take quali-tative aspects into account. Qualita-

tive indicators will most probablyneed further development and speci-fication. Ministries and public agen-cies should specify their need forquantitative and qualitative gender-disaggregated data. In many cases,this will be the first measure whenstarting gender budgeting.

Transparency, partnership and co-operation

Transparency concerning thebudgeting process – and politicaldecision-making in general – shouldbe a guiding principle for successfulgender budgeting. The gender budg-eting process requires partnershipbetween budget experts and genderexperts as well as representation ofwomen and men at all its stages. Part-nership also extends to players out-side government, including civil soci-ety groups and external experts. The

consultation of the Women’s BudgetGroup by the United Kingdom gov-ernment is an example of such partic-ipation.

Co-operation refers to co-operationbetween ministries, with co-opera-tion between the Ministry of Financeand the authorities responsible forgender equality playing a particularlyimportant role. Gender budgeting ini-tiatives may usefully involve playersboth within and outside govern-

ments. Co-operation with externalexperts might often be necessary, inparticular for training governmentofficials and supporting them forundertaking gender impact assess-ment. Civil society players might wellact as intermediaries between gov-ernment and citizens, providingbudget decision-makers with policy-relevant information on men’s andwomen’s needs and priorities.

Meeting the prerequisites

Meeting the prerequisites dependsessentially on political commitment.International recommendations andexperience encourage governmentsand authorities to launch genderbudgeting initiatives. Promotion ofthe overall advantages of genderbudgeting, in particular its potentialin terms of economic efficiency, tar-geting of resources and effectiveness,needs to be further developed.

National commitments under inter-national instruments, especially ongender mainstreaming, such as theRecommendation of the Committee ofMinisters of the Council of Europe tomember states on gender mainstream-ing,2 will provide an essential motiva-tion for governments to take relevantaction.

In many countries, civil societygroups, NGOs and academics play a

crucial role in advocating and encour-aging public discourse on genderbudgeting. Continuous efforts andarguments may be needed to ensureits sustainable implementation.

2. Recommendation No. R (98) 14 of the Com-mittee of Ministers to member states ongender mainstreaming adopted on 7 Octo-ber 1998.

What is gender budgeting? 13

Implementing gender budgeting

Players involved

A wide range of players may beinvolved in gender budgeting. Initia-tives should encompass as many of

them as possible. The same princi-ples apply at local and regional level.

Key players

GovernmentGovernments may take up gender

budgeting on their own initiative or atthe prompting of parliament or civilsociety groups. In either case the gov-ernment is a crucial player withregard to the success of gender budg-eting.

Governments are composite enti-ties that include not only the cabinet/council of ministers, but also thepublic administration of ministries,departments and agencies. Govern-ment decisions are first prepared andlater implemented by a web of play-ers in the government administrationand public agencies. For maximumimpact, gender budgeting initiativesshould be backed by governmentdecisions. The roles of different gov-ernment players should be clearlydefined. Awareness raising and train-ing of officials at all levels is neededto provide necessary knowledge.Responsibility for managementneeds to be clearly assigned. Genderbudget initiatives are most effectivewhen the ministry of finance leadsthe initiative, ideally with the closeinvolvement of the ministry ornational/federal authorities forgender or women’s affairs, but since

all policy areas should be subject togender budgeting, the participationand commitment of all ministries isrequired. Within each ministry,budget officials and policy officialsneed to co-operate and have access togender expertise. These key playersshould be persuaded not only of thevalidity of a gender-sensitiveapproach to budget making but alsothat such an approach is doable andwill enhance their current practices.

While the top-level budget deci-sions are made by cabinet and otherministers, senior civil servants andadvisors also play crucial roles.Gender budgeting represents anenormous challenge to the civil serv-ants whose job it is to draft the finedetail of budgets. Therefore, it isimportant to promote the involve-ment of this “layer” of personnel ingender budget initiatives. There isalso the task of devising tools – toolswhich go beyond approaches, guide-lines and checklists and which areinformed by their normal way ofworking.

Gender expertise may mostly beprovided through gender equalitymachineries. These may be govern-ment bodies, organised as a separate

ministry, a division or department,gender desk or focal points for spe-cific policy areas. They can be organ-ised as an external resource centre ora promotional body with a national/government mandate. Gender equal-ity machineries can raise awarenessand provide information, promoteand co-ordinate gender budgeting;they should feed gender expertiseinto the budgetary process. However,the extent of their participationdepends on co-operation with otherministries, in particular the ministryof finance. Nevertheless, they play akey role in providing expertise andtraining, co-ordination, awareness-raising and capacity-building.

Parliament

Parliaments and local and regionalassemblies in general negotiate,amend and finally adopt the budgetproposed by the executive authori-ties, but they can also submitrequests and engage in lobbyingactivities, thereby participating in theformation of political will andstrengthening governments’ commit-ments to gender budgeting.

14 Gender budgeting

Further players

Researchers and experts

Gender budgeting requires in-depth research and analysis. Academ-ics can therefore make valuable con-tributions, in particular with regard toproviding know-how, implementinggender impact assessment, develop-ing methodology and indicators,auditing budgetary outcomes andtraining government officials.

In Norway, for example, as a partof the government’s gender budget-ing initiative, external experts havebeen commissioned to assess thegender impact of some public pro-grammes targeting small andmedium-sized enterprises and pro-grammes reaching out to marginalgroups of young people. Internationalexpertise has been drawn on to dis-seminate international experiences,raise political interest and more gen-erally to advise the national processof gender budgeting. At the local andregional levels, external experts havebeen commissioned to organise localprojects on gender mainstreamingand gender budgeting, including theprovision of training for administra-tive staff, documenting and evaluat-ing the process, and developingguidelines based on the experiencegained.

In Belgium, the federal “genderbudgeting” initiative was part of thewider gender mainstreaming project.It shared a similar structure combin-ing the expertise of academics withthat of the staff of the federal admin-istration. Experts brought in theirknowledge during the three inter-linked phases of training, actionresearch and information dissemina-tion. Knowledge about approachesand tools was for instance transferredduring the interactive training ses-sions that were organised for a com-bined audience of gender andbudgeting officials. In the actionresearch phase, a number of portfo-lios were selected and experts indi-cated how some of the approachesand instruments of gender budgetingcould be applied, pointing in particu-lar at the value added for policy mak-ing, implementation andeffectiveness. Being confrontedthroughout the project with the needfor easily readable information, the

experts also produced a concise leaf-let, targeted in particular at govern-ment officials.

International organisations

Since the Platform for Actionadopted during the United NationsFourth World Conference on Women(Beijing, 1995) which recommendedthat governments systematicallyreview public sector expendituresand adjust budgets to ensure genderequality concerning access toexpenditure, and that gender budget-ing became an internationally recog-nised strategy for enhancing genderequality, gender budgeting hasbecome a topical subject in numerouscountries and in international organi-sations, such as the Council of Eur-ope, the European Union and theNordic Council of Ministers. Interna-tional organisations play an impor-tant role through adopting anddisseminating memoranda, resolu-tions and guidelines on gender budg-eting, thereby setting internationalstandards. Furthermore, they raiseawareness and provide researchinformation and technical assistance.Particularly during the early stages ofgender budgeting, they providenational initiatives with useful refer-ences and arguments. For instance,the Council of Europe set up an Infor-mal group of experts to prepare a def-inition of gender budgeting and totake stock of the information beforedeciding what future work could bedone in this field, taking into accountthe necessary complementarity ofthe work between the various inter-national organisations. This InformalGroup adopted a definition of genderbudgeting.1 This definition waslargely accepted and included in textsdrafted in the framework of otherinternational organisations such asthe Resolution on Gender budgeting –building public budgets from a genderperspective, adopted by the EuropeanParliament on 3 July 2003. As a resultof the work of its Informal group, theCouncil of Europe set up, in 2004, aGroup of Specialists which drafted areport on gender budgeting aiming atraising awareness in the member

states about this new concept andprovided concrete examples ofprojects which illustrate the differentways in which gender budgeting cancontribute to a better targeted use ofresources.

International organisations canalso contribute to gender budgetinginitiatives at national level by settingan example through the applicationof gender budgeting to their ownactivities, and by organising jointprojects and exchange of experiences,thus stimulating political interest ingender budgeting. In this respect, itshould be underlined that since 1998the Taskforce on Gender Mainstream-ing in the Programme Budget Processof the Inter-Agency Meeting onWomen and Gender Equality(IAMWGE) has carried out a numberof initiatives, including an overviewof the UN system, and 10 in-depthentity case studies, on gender main-streaming in the programme budgetprocess. Reports were published on“Mainstreaming Gender Perspectivesinto Programme Budget Processeswithin the United Nations System”,including this on “Phase One – Inven-tory of efforts to mainstream gender per-spectives in budget processes in bilateraldonors, NGOs, private sectors and oth-ers”. The last one on this subject waspublished by the UN in February2004.

International organisations mayalso encourage the setting up ofnational-level initiatives. The Belgiangender budgeting project, forinstance, described in Part III of thereport Gender budgeting initiatives inthe Council of Europe member states,started in 2002 as a spin-off from theBrussels-based high-level interna-tional conference “Strengthening eco-nomic and financial governance:towards gender responsive budgeting”organised jointly by the UnitedNations Development Fund forWomen (UNIFEM), the Organisationfor Economic Cooperation and Devel-opment (OECD), the Nordic Councilof Ministers and the Belgian Govern-ment.

Non-governmental organisations

Although civil society initiativesmay suffer from resource and data

1. See above, “What is gender budgeting?”,page 10.

Implementing gender budgeting 15

constraints, its distance from govern-ment allows it a critical perspectivein independent monitoring and eval-uation of the budget. NGOs are ingeneral called upon to conductresearch and provide training for gov-ernment officials. Furthermore, theinformation base can be broadened

through the channelling of informa-tion from citizens to budget decision-makers.

Trade unions and employers’ organisations

Trade unions and employers’organisations play an important role

in organising and articulating collec-tive will and could also contribute tothe process of gender budgeting inso-far as they participate in policy devel-opment.

The various stages of the budget process

Gender budgeting initiatives maybe launched by players inside or out-side governments. However, thepotential for change in the budgetprocess depends on governmentinvolvement. More specifically,involvement of the ministry offinance is crucial for any lastingeffect. The initiative may come fromgovernment (either committed indi-viduals within the Cabinet or thegender equality machinery), parlia-ment, an external donor or civil soci-ety groups. It may be motivated byefficiency considerations and/orcommitment to gender equality.

All policy areas are relevant togender budgeting, since they allaffect gender relations. Nevertheless,depending on the level of politicalwill, resources and expertise availa-ble, it may be necessary as a first stepto focus on certain policy areas. Oftenthe first step involves mapping theneed for gender-disaggregated dataand taking the necessary steps toacquire data for further gender analy-sis.

In Belgium, for instance, the port-folios that would be focused on formore in-depth analysis were selectedafter a first information round in alldepartments of the federal adminis-tration. Two “flying” academicexperts visited all departments andtook stock of prior or ongoing initia-tives, noted down the types ofgender-disaggregated data, bothquantitative and qualitative, thatwere available and accessible andgauged the eagerness of the depart-ment staff to be involved more fullyin a gender budgeting exercise.

Depending on national/regional/local circumstances, gender budget-ing initiatives should take all steps ofthe budgeting process into accountand promote gender budgetingthroughout the process, including

planning, preparation, implementa-tion, audit and evaluation.

Planning and preparation of the budget

In general, this first stage of thebudget process is led by the ministryof finance, although all ministries areinvolved. Gender budgeting initia-tives must start by defining gender-specific objectives and appropriateindicators for measuring the directimpact of planned policies. A gender-aware medium-term economic policyframework, gender-aware policyappraisals and gender-disaggregatedbeneficiary assessments might be theappropriate tools for planning andpreparing the budget. Defining a pro-gramme of budgetary gender objec-tives and indicators is an essentialpart of the planning and preparationstage.

Adoption of the budget

The adoption of the budget is up tothe parliament, which might exertinfluence, for example by requestingtools and methods for gender budget-ing and gender-based assessment ofparts or the whole of the budget.

Implementation of the budget

The administration implementsthe budget according to law and gen-eral guidelines. However, implemen-tation always also involves decision-making. Steps must be taken toensure that these decision-makingprocesses take gender equality – inaccordance with gender-aware policyframeworks or gender-aware policyappraisals – into account.

Implementation also involveslower-level authorities, both politicaland administrative, public agencies,NGOs and research agencies receiv-ing public funds. Allocation of publicmoney from central governmentshould always be accompanied by

instructions to ensure a beneficialgender impact.

Auditing of the budget

Auditing of the budget generallyinvolves the government and parlia-ment. Current types of auditingmainly focus on efficiency. Genderbudgeting means ensuring that theaudit, when assessing efficiency andeffectiveness, assesses them from agender equality perspective based ongender-specific objectives and indica-tors set in the framework of genderbudgeting initiatives and establishinggender awareness as an additionalauditing principle. Gender-awarebudget statements might be a helpfultool for ensuring the application of agender perspective throughout theaudit.

Evaluation of the budget

Evaluation can be defined as “care-ful retrospective assessment of the merit,worth, and value of administration, out-put, and outcome of government inter-ventions, which is intended to play arole in future practical action situations”(Evert Vedung 1997). It is importantto make gender and the effects ongender equality visible throughoutthe whole evaluation process. Evalua-tion refers in particular to assessingthe gender impact of expendituresand revenues and to making thegender effects of the budget visible.The process of evaluation is not insti-tutionalised in many countries. Inorder to ensure gender-aware evalua-tion, new institutional proceduresshould be introduced, possibly draw-ing on external expertise. Gender-dis-aggregated beneficiary assessment,public expenditure incidence analy-sis and tax incidence analysis are val-uable tools of evaluation. Criticalevaluation seems of the utmostimportance since it provides the basisfor further planning and preparation.

16 Gender budgeting

A list of questions that may beexplored at various stages of the

budget cycle is provided in the Tableunder item F of this section.

Tools and methods for gender budgeting

Whereas public expenditures aredirectly linked to specific policyareas, public revenues form a policyarea of their own. A distinction there-fore has to be drawn between expend-iture-related and revenue-relatedanalysis.

The tools and methods for genderbudgeting reflect three basic steps ofgender budgeting, which can besummed up as follows:2

Expenditure-related

• analysis of gender relations in aspecific area of related policies andbudget allocations (each of them

could be the starting point for anal-ysis);

• development of gender-sensitivepolicies in this area and theirtranslation into budgetary alloca-tions;

• examination of the impact of thisgender-sensitive policy.

Revenue-related

• analysis of the impact of specificrevenues on gender relations;

• development of a gender-sensitiverevenue policy and its implemen-tation;

• examination of the impact of thisgender-sensitive revenue policy.A variety of tools and methods for

gender budgeting are available.Which one to apply depends on avail-able resources, the scope and focus ofthe gender budgeting initiative, andthe stage reached in the implementa-tion of gender budgeting.

Nevertheless, tools and methodsfor gender budgeting should refer not

only to the distribution of expendi-tures/revenues, but also to effects onemployment, income distribution,the care economy (in particular thedistribution of paid and unpaid work)and on time use. They should alsotake account of gender-specificneeds/wants as well as gender-spe-cific reactions to policy measures andthe extent to which budgets contrib-ute to overcoming gender stereo-types.

Many tools and methods forgender budgeting are based on widelyused mainstream economicapproaches and methods, which aretransformed by incorporating agender perspective, thereby extend-ing their scope to or focusing them ongender issues. Depending onnational, regional or local circum-stances, gender budgeting initiativeswill have to further develop andrefine tools and methods, adaptingthem to their specific context.

Analysing gender relations

Incorporating gender analysis intoplanning and appraisal of the budgetrequires identifying likely genderdimensions of activities, outputs andimpacts.3 Tools for gender-basedassessment have been developed,among others, in Sweden (3 RMethod and GERAC)4 and in theNetherlands.5 The 1997 EuropeanCommission Guide to gender main-streaming reflects the sameapproach. Gender budgeting involvesasking questions that are fundamen-tal in any gender analysis and relat-ing them to public revenue and

expenditure. These are questionsconcerning: • incidence/representation of

women and men or girls and boysamong recipients, beneficiaries orcontributors in terms of expendi-ture and revenue;

• the long- and short-term implica-tions for the distribution by genderof resources such as money, posi-tions of power, time for leisure,paid and unpaid work.In order to avoid simplistic conclu-

sions, the counting of women andmen in terms of representation andallocation/distribution of financialand other resources must be comple-mented by a qualitative analysis.Qualitative analysis should take intoaccount a range of factors includingsocio-economic status and axes of dis-crimination.

Analysing expenditures/revenues

In order to analyse the current sit-uations of women and men or girlsand boys in a specific sector – or

assess the gender effects of policiesor policy measures – further meas-ures have been developed which linkbudgets to policies, focusing on differ-ent aspects (revenues, expenditures,public services or time use).

Gender-disaggregated revenue inci-dence analysis is a research tech-nique examining direct and indirecttaxes as well as user fees paid bywomen and men.

Gender-disaggregated public expendi-ture incidence analysis comparespublic expenditure on a given pro-gramme, usually with data fromhousehold surveys, to reveal the dis-tribution of expenditures betweenwomen and men or girls and boys.

Gender-disaggregated beneficiaryassessment is a research techniqueused to ask actual or potential benefi-ciaries the extent to which govern-ment programmes and/or publicservices match their needs, wantsand priorities.

2. For information on tools and methods ofgender budgeting, see also Budlender, Deb-bie/Sharp, Ronda/Allen, Kerri (1998): Howto do a Gender-sensitive Budget Analysis: Con-temporary Research and Practice. London/Canberra; Elson (1999): Commonwealth Gen-der-Responsive Budget Initiative. BackgroundPapers. London: Commonwealth Secretar-iat; UNIFEM (2002): Gender Budget Initia-tives: Strategies, Concepts and Experiences;and Web sites of international agencieslisted in the bibliography (Appendix IV,p. 43).

3. Kate Bellamy, Background Paper on GenderBudgeting for the Council of Europe InformalGroup of Experts on Gender Budgeting.November 2002.

4. http://naring.regeringen.se/inenglish/pdf/N2001_052.pdf (Just Progress! Applyinggender mainstreaming in Sweden); http://www.svekom.se/jamstalldhet/jamverkstan.pdf; http://www.svekom.se/jamstalldhet/pdf/aktivt_jamstalldhetsarbete.pdf .

5. The SMART-tool and a method for GenderImpact Analysis, both developed by MiekeVerloo at the University of Nijmegen.


Gender-disaggregated analysis of theimpact of the budget on time use

looks at the relationship between thenational budget and the way time isused in households. This ensures thatthe time spent by women on unpaidwork is accounted for in policy analy-sis.

Gender impact assessment (GIA) isan ex post evaluation of budgets or exante evaluation of budget proposalsand probably the most extensive andcomplex tool of gender budgeting,since it refers to short and long-termbudgetary effects on the distributionof and access to resources (includingtime) and on gender roles and norms.GIA therefore requires not only dataon both the market and the careeconomy, paid and unpaid work, butalso on gender stereotypes, gender-specific perceptions, rules, symbols,traditions and discriminating prac-tices within societies.

Generally speaking, these aremethods of ex post analysis (althoughgender impact assessment can alsobe applied ex ante) to gain knowledgeabout gender gaps. Application ofthese methods might lead to the iden-tification of hidden gender inequali-ties and indicate a need toreformulate or for a shift in politicalpriorities policies and programmes.

Designing gender-sensitive policies

Gender-aware medium-term eco-nomic policy framework and gender-aware policy appraisal are methodswhich refer to the development anddesign of policies, providing the basisfor budget planning and preparation.Since in most countries medium-term economic policy frameworksand policy appraisals are applied any-way, the main change related togender budgeting consists in theincorporation of a gender perspec-tive. Both methods proposed hereseem essential for gender budgetingand should be applied regularly.

Gender-aware medium-term eco-nomic policy frameworks seek toincorporate a gender perspective intothe economic models on whichmedium-term economic frameworksare based. This tool assumes andadvocates the presence of a stronggender mainstreaming policy in

developing the medium-term fiscalpolicy framework.

Gender-aware policy appraisalinvolves scrutinising the policies ofdifferent portfolios and programmesand paying attention to the implicitand explicit gender issues involved. Itquestions the assumption that poli-cies are “gender-neutral” in theireffects and asks instead in what wayspolicies and their associated resourceallocations are likely to reduce orincrease gender inequalities. The UKWomen’s Budget Group’s policyappraisals on tax credits, for example,contributed to policy changes withregard to Working Family Tax Credits,Child Tax Credits and EmploymentTax Credits.

Transforming gender-sensitive policies into budgetary categories

Gender-aware programmes ofbudgetary objectives, benchmarkingand gender-aware budget statementsare methods closely linked to thebudget process which take the budgetas a point of reference.

Programmes of budgetary objec-tives and benchmarking are ex antetools, while gender-aware budgetstatements are to be applied ex postonly. Programmes of budgetaryobjectives exist in most countries, sogender budgeting in this caserequires revision of focuses and goalsonly.

Setting up a gender-aware pro-gramme of budgetary objectives is anessential part of planning and prepar-ing a budget. It implies defining gen-eral gender equality goals to beattained – or at least approached –through budgetary measures.Although budgets in general coverperiods of one year, the programmeof objectives should refer to short,medium and long-term aims.

Programmes of budgetary objectivesalso serve as a basis for auditing andevaluation. Formulating objectivesprecisely and quantifying them, ifpossible, are therefore importantsteps for making changes measura-ble. On the other hand, this shouldnot cause non-monetary aims to beneglected.

Benchmarking means establishingreference points in order to specifythe effects of budgetary changes. It

involves the development and speci-fication of indicators representingcore dimensions of gender relations,which serve as a standard for deter-mining the consequences of budgetmeasures. Benchmarking thereforerequires the ability to relate budget-ary changes to particular social phe-nomena. It constitutes an importantprerequisite for evaluation. Thechosen indicators will thereforeclosely reflect the programme ofbudgetary objectives.

A gender-aware budget statement is agovernment report that reviews thebudget and summarises its implica-tions for gender equality. It involves aprocess which may utilise any of theabove tools and methods. It requires ahigh degree of commitment and co-ordination throughout the publicsector as ministries or departmentsassess the gender impact of their linebudgets. Gender-aware budget state-ments on the gender impact of reve-nues and expenditures are issuedalongside the national budget by theFrench government, for example.Another example is the Swedishbudget statement on the distributionof economic resources betweenwomen and men, which is appendedto the financial forecast of the statebudget. It summarises the economicsituation and the effects of the wel-fare system on different groups ofwomen and men.

Implementing gender-sensitive budgets

Tools for implementation, prima-rily instructions and guidelines, areavailable to all players involved ingender budgeting to ensure its suc-cessful implementation. They offerguidance on how to incorporate agender perspective at each stage ofthe budget process. Instructions andguidelines seem particularly impor-tant in the administration and shouldbe accompanied by specific gendertraining. In principle, it might beuseful to have specific guidelines foreach step of the budget process.

Gender-aware guidelines for imple-mentation are designed to ensuregender-sensitive budget execution.The guidelines should explain the rel-evance of gender equality in relationto other aims and principles of imple-

18 Gender budgeting

mentation and set clear priorities.The guidelines might also involvegender-specific quantitative targetsfor each budget unit.

Moreover, specific training ongender sensitivity is a necessaryback-up measure, helping to ensurethat the implementation processaccords with the underlying genderequality objectives of the budget.Where trade unions or employers’organisations take part in the imple-

mentation process, it might be neces-sary to have specific guidelinescovering their particular sphere ofactivity.

Gender-sensitive evaluation of the budget

Gender-aware guidelines for audit-ing and evaluation provide informa-tion on how to conduct the audit andevaluation of the budget in terms ofits gender impact. Such guidelines

ensure proper interpretation of budg-etary objectives, taking gender equal-ity as a reference point.

Like guidelines for implementa-tion they should relate gender equal-ity to other aims and principles andset clear priorities. Strict guidelinesfor auditing and evaluation not onlyhelp the players involved, but guaran-tee high-quality gender-aware budgetstatements.

Challenges

Obstacles

Obstacles may be practical interms of a lack of data or appropriatetools and expertise, or they may bebased on resistance or a lack of willand commitment at the political levelof government or in the governmentadministration. The main obstaclehindering the gender budgeting proc-ess certainly consists in a lack ofpolitical will to allocate sufficienthuman and financial resources or toconsider the reallocations of expendi-ture or reforms of taxation and reve-nues that might be called for as aresult of gender analysis. These chal-lenges can only be met through con-stant political pressure andcompliance with international com-mitments. Active steps must be takento have gender budgeting recognisedas a priority.

Economic theory, budget-making and gender equality

Recent research demonstrated therole played by economic theory inthe development of economic policyand the consequent budget making.

The economic theory was clearlygender-blind, and avowedly so. Whenadopted by the economic policy mak-ers, the theory was accepted withoutquestion and the resultant economicpolicy rendered gender-biased. Thisuncritical approach to economictheory is at the root of much genderequality. What was discovered in theresearch was that new thinking canbe developed to critique the eco-nomic theory and to find ways toaccommodate the principles inherentin the theory while rendering it neu-tral in terms of its potential discrimi-natory effects. To this end, dialoguebetween economists and genderexperts should be encouraged andpromoted.

Enduring gender practicesGiven the disappointingly slow

progress in relation to the implemen-tation of gender mainstreaming,there is a pressing need to ensuregender budgeting does not become aonce off dalliance but is introducedwithin an overall strategic process

and at a level that can be built upon.We know that while we can count inincreasing decades the number ofcountries involved in gender budgetinitiatives, often there is little followup. In some cases the exercisebecomes discredited, for one reasonor another, and so is dismissed. Justas gender mainstreaming has becomein many instances an exercise inchecklists, there is the danger ofgender budgeting being perceived asa once off exercises. It is often thecase that civil society has becomemore involved in gender main-streaming and gender budgeting thanthose who are meant to be engaged inthese practices – “the actors normallyinvolved”. While it is important thatcivil society knows how to monitorthese processes, unless policy-makers and budget-makers are doinggender mainstreaming and genderbudgeting, then change will nothappen where it should most effec-tively happen.

Evaluation of gender budgeting initiatives

Despite its potential and theopportunities it offers, gender budg-eting remains a relatively new field ofexperience, and application in Euro-pean countries remains limited andhesitant. Both conceptualisation, interms of appropriate methodology,tools and techniques for variousstages in the budget cycle and for var-ious kinds of budgetary processes,and practical implementation areevolving. Clearly, lesson-learningand cross-fertilisation between differ-

ent countries, regions and players arenecessary to further stimulate genderbudgeting methodology and practice.This may be achieved through moni-toring and evaluation of initiativesand through the sharing and assimila-tion of lessons learned.

In order to be able to monitor andevaluate initiatives, it is essentialthat, from the very beginning, initia-tives set out clearly their objectives(such as awareness raising, accounta-bility or bringing about change), the

ultimate impact they want to achieve,the concrete results they want toobtain, the activities foreseen, spe-cific approaches, tools and instru-ments applied, and the human andfinancial resources to be used. Eachof these elements in the chain shouldas far as possible be translated interms of indicators that are objec-tively verifiable.

Initially, monitoring and evalua-tion of initiatives will necessarilyfocus on implementation of initia-


tives (process evaluation) as it isimpossible to expect any impact frominitiatives if they are not well or evennot at all implemented. Basic ques-tions are:

• whether the activities foreseen inthe initiative were implemented asplanned and if not, why;

• what hindrances were there to suc-cessful implementation; whatstimuli were there;

• whether the financial and humanresources for implementationwere sufficient and adequate;

• what hindrances were there toresource allocation; what stimuliwere there;

• whether changes in financial andhuman resources could lead tobetter implementation of activi-ties;

• whether the anticipated resultsand impact were achieved;

• to what extent the results andimpact were due to the initiative;

• whether the activities imple-mented were the right ones toachieve the results and impact;

• whether changes in activitiescould lead to better results andimpact. Clearly, the importance of moni-

toring and evaluation goes beyondthe specific initiatives they focus on.To ensure that maximum benefit isderived from the results of both proc-ess and impact evaluation, it isimportant that they are not only fedback into the initiatives themselvesbut also disseminated across regionaland national boundaries. A kind ofsupranational network for dissemina-tion of monitoring and evaluationresults might therefore be envisaged.

The rapid development gender budgeting has undergone in the last few years shows its great potential with regard to gender equality and good economic governance. The Group therefore recommends the applica-tion of gender budgeting as an essential component of gender main-streaming in all Council of Europe member States.The Group also recommends that the questionnaire prepared to collect information about and concrete examples of gender budgeting initia-tives in the Council of Europe member states should be updated with a view to identifying and exploring new approaches and, on that basis, updating the report on Gender budgeting.

20 Gender budgeting

Table: Incorporating a gender perspective in the public budget process

This list of questions applies in particular to initiatives undertaken by gender equality machineries.

Stages of the budget process Possible questions

Planning and preparation of the budget

What procedure is followed?

What type of budgetary system is used: input budgeting, results-based or per-formance-oriented budgeting, medium-term expenditure frameworks (taking into account ongoing or planned reforms in the budgetary system)?

Who are the players involved?

Who is responsible for co-ordination?

What are the possible entry points for lobbying and negotiation on the incorpo-ration of a gender perspective?

Is gender expertise available with the players currently involved in planning and preparation of the budget?

Is gender expertise involved in the planning and preparation of the budget?

Have gender-specific objectives been identified?

Have objectives been translated into objectively verifiable indicators?

What is the degree of gender-disaggregation of data currently used in planning and preparation of the budget?

What relevant gender-disaggregated data is not currently used but available and accessible?

What methods and tools are available and applicable for the specific type of budgetary system used (e.g. gender-aware policy appraisal, functional perform-ance framework, gender-aware medium-term economic policy framework, gender-disaggregated beneficiary assessment)?

Is a gender perspective incorporated into the official budget document?

Adoption of the budget What is the procedure?


What possibilities are there for lobbying and negotiation on the incorporation of a gender perspective?

Is gender expertise available with the players involved in adoption of the budget (possibly organised through specific parliamentary committees)?

What methods, tools and results of prior analysis are available for the players involved in the adoption of the budget?

Is a gender perspective incorporated into the official budget document?


Implementation and monitoring of the budget

What procedures are followed?

What type of budgetary system is used?


Who is responsible for co-ordination?

What possibilities are there for lobbying and negotiation on the incorporation of a gender perspective?

Is gender expertise available with the players involved in the implementation and monitoring of the budget?

Is gender expertise involved in the implementation and monitoring of the budget?

What traditional tools and methods are used for implementation?

What traditional tools and methods are used for monitoring?

Is it possible to incorporate a gender perspective into traditional methods and tools?

What degree of gender-disaggregation of data is currently used?

What additional methods and tools for gender budgeting could be applied (e.g. gender-disaggregated benefit incidence analysis, gender-disaggregated revenue incidence analysis)?


Is a gender perspective incorporated into the official budget evaluation docu-ment?

Auditing of the budget What is the procedure?



What possibilities are there for lobbying and negotiating on the incorporation of a gender dimension?

What traditional methods and tools are used?

Is it possible to incorporate a gender perspective into traditional methods and tools?

What degree of gender-disaggregation of data is currently used?


Is a gender perspective incorporated into the official budget audit document?


22 Gender budgeting

Evaluation of the budget What is the procedure?



What possibilities are there for lobbying and negotiation on the incorporation of a gender perspective exist?

Is gender expertise available with the players involved in the evaluation of the budget?

What type of budget analysis is traditionally applied? What criteria: Output? Outcome? Impact? Quantitative and qualitative dimensions?

What methods and tools for budget analysis are traditionally applied?

Is it possible to incorporate a gender perspective into different types, tools and methods of budget analysis?

What degree of gender-disaggregation of data is currently used in traditional budget analysis?

What additional types, methods and tools of gender budget analysis could be applied (e.g. gender-disaggregated benefit incidence analysis, gender-disaggre-gated revenue incidence analysis)?


Is a gender perspective incorporated into the official budget evaluation docu-ment?



Example of guidelines for starting a gender budgeting initiative

Why start a gender budgeting initiative?

In all countries, there are signifi-cant gaps and inequalities betweenwomen and men in terms of politicaland economic participation, remu-neration, income and economicassets, and in terms of unpaid careand housework in the families. Allmember states of the Council ofEurope are signatory parties to theConvention of the United Nations on theElimination of all forms of Discrimina-tion against Women (CEDAW), whichrequires state partners to take all nec-essary steps to ensure gender equal-ity.

States Parties shall take in all fields, in

particular in the political, social, eco-

nomic and cultural fields, all appropri-

ate measures, including legislation, to

en sure the full development and ad-

vancement of women, for the purpose

of guaranteeing them the exercise and

enjoyment of human rights and funda-

mental freedoms on a basis of equality

with men.

Convention on the Elimination of AllForms Of Discrimination against Women,

Article 3

Further to the commitmentsunder the CEDAW Convention, the1995 Beijing Platform for Action wasendorsed by next to all UN memberstates. The world community agreedthat the national governments mustreallocate and mobilise additionalresources for the empowerment ofwomen.

Governments should make efforts to

systematically review how women

benefit from public sector expendi-

tures; adjust budgets to ensure equality

of access to public sector expenditures;

adjust budgets to ensure equality of

access to public sector expenditures,

both for enhancing productive capacity

and for meeting social needs; and

achieve the gender related commit-

ments made in other United Nations

summits and conferences. To develop

successful national implementation

strategies for the Platform for Action,

Governments should allocate sufficient

resources, including resources for un-

dertaking gender impact analysis.

Beijing Platform for Action,paragraph 346

Gender budgeting is a tool toensure that governments commit-ments to gender equality and theadvancement of women are backedby necessary resources. It means thata gender perspective will inform theallocation of public budgets. This willcontribute to a fair distribution, aswell as target oriented, user friendlyand efficient allocation of publicresources. Gender based assessmentaims to render visible and documentany unwanted gender inequalities.This will facilitate goal-orientedaction and measures to close gendergaps and realise the full potential ofboth women and men in the econ-omy as well as in other socialspheres. Further, this will contributeto qualitatively better and more real-istic analyses. It supports the princi-ples of good governance, democraticparticipation, accountability andtransparency, as well as effectivenessand efficiency.

Organising a gender budgeting initiative

Base responsibility in the ordinary budget process

The ministry of finance/budget

should take the lead in organising a

gender budgeting initiative, whether

of their own accord or following an

initiative from the national gender

equality machinery, the parliamentor others.

The finance/budget ministry pre-pares and finalises the government’sbudget proposition for presentationto the parliament. These authorities

should issue guidelines that incorpo-rate gender disaggregated statisticsand tables as a basic requirement (alldata relating to persons). They shouldacquire and/or collaborate withgender expertise to develop methods

24 Gender budgeting

and tools for gender sensitive macro-economic analyses. According to themainstreaming principle, co-ordina-tion should rest with the ministry incharge. Responsibilities, however,will be spread across all the differentline ministries.

In practice, gender budgeting initi-atives will frequently be originated inthe national gender equality machin-ery and may be co-ordinated by it at

least for a certain period. Genderbudgeting initiatives can also beorganised autonomously in a lineministry or government service.

The principle still applies thatclose collaboration should be soughtwith the ministry/department/serv-ice in charge of co-ordination andbudgets. Partnership with thebudget/finance ministry (and depart-ment), responsible for the prepara-

tion of the government budget pro-posal, is crucial to the initiative’sviability.

Henceforth the term budget depart-ment will be used, for simplicity. Thefollowing guidelines are tailored tomeet the needs of incipient genderbudgeting initiatives. They do notprecondition, (nor do they preclude),the active involvement of the minis-try of budget/finance.

Ensure management responsibility

At the level of each ministry, theultimate responsibility should liewith the top management/directorgeneral, who will ensure that the nec-

essary steps are taken by the directorof the budget department and thedirectors of the various policy depart-ments. The responsibility of heads of

departments includes allocating thenecessary human and financialresources.

Apportionment of responsibilities within a gender budgeting initiative

The budget department shouldorganise the gender budgeting proc-ess, including planning of the processand requesting the contributions ofother (ministries and) departments.

The line ministries/departmentsundertake, or commission, gender

analyses within their own responsi-bility areas.

The national gender equalitymachinery should use its expertiseand capacity to assist with the designand implementation of the genderbudgeting process.

This principle is in accordancewith the mainstreaming principle,that the actors normally involvedshould apply a gender perspective intheir ordinary duties.

Cross-fertilisation: bring together budget, policy and gender expertise

Each ministry should ensure dif-ferent types of expertise worktogether to achieve gender sensitivebudgeting. The budget departmentand policy departments should col-laborate, along with gender expertise.Budget expertise and policy expertiseis usually ready at hand in any organ-isation. Gender expertise may have tobe acquired or developed.

Each ministry and governmentservice should enlist, train and utiliseavailable gender expertise withintheir ranks.

Gender focal points should beappointed in all ministries. They aremandatory to animate gender main-streaming of policies and of budgets(gender budgeting). The gender focalpoints need solid management back-ing, a clear mandate, and any training

necessary to meet expectations. Suffi-cient time needs to set aside for themto fulfil their tasks.

The national gender equalitymachinery is a crucial source ofgender expertise. In most countriesthere will also be external genderexpertise that can be consulted. A listof external gender experts and con-sultancies should be drawn up.

Involving government agencies

In many cases, core measures willnot be a direct responsibility of theministry, but delegated with underly-ing government agencies. These

agencies should be involved or taskedwith the design and execution ofgender based assessment, as appro-priate. The budget allocations for rel-

evant government agencies should asa rule specify that a gender perspec-tive be mainstreamed in their activi-ties.

Planning a gender budgeting initiative

Establish a joint task force

As a first step, the co-ordinatingdepartment organise a task force,bringing in representatives from thepolicy departments, and genderexpertise. The task force reports to

the budget/co-ordination departmentwhich retains oversight and is respon-sible for overall co-ordination. Bothwomen and men should be activelyinvolved in the process.

The mandate of the task force:• take stock of the situation;• assess the gender relevance of the

budget/policy areas;• propose a plan of action.

Example of guidelines for starting a gender budgeting initiative 25

Take stock of the situation

All the departments should beinvolved to check for prior or ongoing

gender initiatives, especially thoserelated to resource allocation.• Experiences gained

• Follow-up of findings/conclusions• Availability of relevant external

research & development

Check gender relevance

You need statistics disaggregatedby sex. If this is not available, youmust start by taking the necessarysteps to acquire the relevant data.The national statistical office is oneobvious source. Often, sex disaggre-gated data are available though notalways published or analysed. TheMinistry should always request andensure that person-related data andresearch that they commission oracquire is presented and analysed bygender.

• Check gender relevance in allbudget/policy areas

• For each budget area, explainbriefly how gender is relevant

• Dismiss with a short explanationbudget areas that are clearlydevoid of gender relevance.

In order to check gender rele-vance,1 you need ask the right ques-tions:

• Does the budget/policy area con-cern one or more target groups? Isthe daily life of part(s) of the popu-lation affected?

• Are there differences betweenwomen and men in this policyfield (with regard to rights,resources, participation, valuesand norms related to gender)?If the answer to either of these two

questions is positive, gender is rele-vant to your issue. You need to obtainand study sex-disaggregated data andassess the potential gender impact.

Plan of action

On the basis of the initial checkingof gender relevance, and the stock-taking, the task force prepares a pro-posal for a prioritised and time-boundaction plan for gender based assess-ment of the relevant budget areas.

The plan of action should addressthe following questions:

• the extent of the proposed assess-ments;

• ensuring institutional back-up,resources and expertise for theimplementation.

Set a realistic time-frame! The pri-orities should ideally reflect theimportance and political priority ofthe budget areas. A stepwiseapproach and tactical considerationsmay be recommended. Start byassessing one or more budget lineswhere the relevance of gender isobvious, or there is clear politicalinterest. More complex areas can bedealt with later, after a certain body ofexperience has been attained and thenecessary resources have been com-mitted, or are more easily advocated.

The plan of action should be sub-mitted for adoption at the highestlevel to ensure commitment to itsimplementation.

The plan should be revised annu-ally with a view to:• regular monitoring;• follow-up of findings;• making use of experiences gained

in the process;• initiating new assessments accord-

ing to the listed priorities;• review the plan and making cor-

rections as appropriate.

Gender based assessment

Budgets and policies may impactdifferently on women and men. Theycan contribute to increasing or reduc-ing gender inequality, even when itwas neither intended nor envisaged.Women and men, girls and boys havedifferent priorities and organise theirlives differently. They have unequalaccess to social benefits and eco-nomic resources. Gender basedassessment is a tool to ensure that thedifferent behaviour, aspirations andneeds of women and men are equallyfavoured in the organisation and gov-erning of society. This also implies aredistribution of power andresources.

When assessing the gender rele-vance of budget areas you should askwhether the budget area may havedifferent implications for women andmen, girls and boys in terms of: • the challenges that the budget area

is to address; • the overall objective of the budget

area;• the effect of the budget area for

choice and agency at the level ofindividuals and households.To launch a gender based assess-

ment:• Define and clearly demarcate the

area to be assessed. • Define gender relevant objectives

and indicators for the specific area.

• Choice of approach or methodol-ogy depends on the scale of thebudget area in question, the indi-cators (quantitative or qualitative),and what data are available.

• Who will execute the assessment?Whether to go for external exper-tise, or executive officers withinthe administration, depends onthe complexity of the task. It is aquestion of competence, and ofavailability of either human orfinancial resources.Methods for gender budgeting and

useful references are described inthis report (see “Tools and methods forgender budgeting”, page 17, andAppendix IV – Bibliography, p. 42).

1. EU Guide to gender impact assessment1997, and Mieke Verloo “Smart” instrument.

26 Gender budgeting

Follow-up to the assessment

The assessment may revealunforeseen and unwanted genderinequalities. Responsibility lies withthe political and administrative lead-ership to take the necessary decisionsand initiate actions to correct the

unwanted imbalances. Proposals forchanges and corrective measuresshould take into account interna-tional instruments (such as the Con-vention on the Elimination of All Formsof Discrimination against Women and

the Beijing Platform for Action) as wellas the national definition and goalsfor gender equality/the advancementof women.

Visibility of gender in the government’s budget proposition: expected outcomes

Increasingly, gender should be vis-

ibly integrated throughout the budget

proposition. This will contribute to

raising the gender awareness among

the parliamentarians and other users

of the budget within and outside the

ministries and governments agen-cies.

All person-related statistics, tablesand figures should be desegregated,analysed and presented by sex. Whenappropriate, other axes of differentia-

tion should be also specified, such asethnic origin.

The increasing number, scope andquality of gender based assessmentsshould gradually transform financialand budgetary policy in accordancewith gender equality objectives.

Example of guidelines for starting a gender budgeting initiative 27

Examples of gender budgeting initiatives in Council of Europe member states

Austria

An independent group of econo-mists and social scientists from uni-versities and other research institu-tions started Austria’s first genderbudgeting initiative in spring 2001.This working group, known as BEIG-EWUM, collected information ongender budgeting and its interna-tional development and explored thegender-specific effects of the Austriannational budget. The goal of this initi-ative was first of all to raise aware-ness and provide information aboutgender budgeting in order to moti-vate both government and NGOs topursue the issue further. The estab-lishment of relations with NGOs andwith the gender-mainstreaming co-ordinator of the Ministry of Financeled to the emergence of a genderbudgeting network with the workinggroup as a focal point.

As a result, several conferences ongender budgeting were organisedand, at the end of 2002, after one anda half years of continuous co-opera-tion, the BEIGEWUM working grouppublished a book1 containing theresults of its work, which has becomean important reference point in Aus-

tria. It deals with macroeconomicstrategy and its impact on women aswell as government revenues (focus-ing on taxes, social security and userfees) and selected areas of publicexpenditure (education, research,labour market policy, funding forwomen’s organisations).

Moreover, in response to thedemand for more practical assistanceon how to approach and implementgender budgeting at the local level, ahandbook on the application ofgender budgeting at regional andlocal levels was published in June2004.

In 2002, the Ministry of Financetook the first steps towards genderbudgeting by conducting a gender-disaggregated data analysis2 of Aus-trian income tax. A check list wasalso devised to serve as a genderbudgeting guideline for the adminis-tration.

In March 2004, the Austrian Fed-eral Government finally decided toimplement gender budgeting. TheMinistry of Health and Women’sAffairs accordingly established agender budgeting working group as

part of the gender mainstreamingimplementation process and started apilot analysis of expenditures on drugpolicy by the end of 2004. Further-more, the 2005 budget law introducedgender budgeting as a means ofgender mainstreaming. As a first stepeach ministry was requested to ana-lyse the gender impact of one cate-gory of its budget allocations.

The federal state of Upper Austriahas launched a gender budgetinganalysis at regional level with thehelp of external experts in close co-operation with the administration.The analysis focuses on public spend-ing on education, health and sports(about 50% of Upper Austria’sexpenditure). Direct benefits, effectson employment and indirect effectson the care economy, in particular onunpaid work, will be explored inorder to develop a policy mix for thepromotion of gender equality.

In Vienna, the city administrationdeclared its intention to start in 2005a gender budgeting pilot projectwhich involves analysing the budgetin one of the city’s districts. Severalcities and small communities havestarted – or at least declared theirintention to start – local gender budg-eting initiatives.

Belgium

A year-long pilot project on “gen-der budgeting” was carried out at fed-

eral government level in Belgium.3 Itstarted in June 2002 as a spin-off

from the Brussels-based internationalconference on “Strengthening Eco-

1. BEIGEWUM (2002): Frauen macht Budgets.Staatsfinanzen aus Geschlechterperspektive,Wien.

2. BMF (2002): Is the Austrian tax system really“gender-neutral”? Results of a wage and incometax comparison between men and women.Wien. (http://www.bmf.gv.at/)

28 Gender budgeting

nomic and Financial Governance:towards Gender Responsive Budget-ing” organised jointly by UNIFEM,OECD, the Nordic Council of Minis-ters and the Belgian government.4

The initiative was spearheaded bythe Belgian federal Ministry ofEmployment and Equal Opportuni-ties and housed under the umbrellaof the wider gender mainstreamingproject, which started at the end of2000. Both the gender mainstreamingand the gender budgeting initiativewere built upon a combination of “fly-ing” academic experts workingtogether with in-house staff (mostlythe gender focal points) of federalministries. The objective of the initia-tive was to explore the feasibility ofapplying gender budgeting withinBelgium’s federal government serv-ices. For this purpose, three inter-linked phases of training, actionresearch and information dissemina-tion were set up by the staff responsi-ble at the Directory of Equal Opportu-

nities and two teams of threeacademic experts. The pilot projecthas generated a number of concreteoutputs:

• budgeting and gender officialsreceived training in the rationale,approaches and tools for genderbudgeting. The training was delib-erately organised for a combinedaudience so as to bring togetherofficers with two entirely differentknowledge bases and experiences,which will certainly affect futuregender-related individual andorganisational learning;

• action research led to a stocktakingin all federal ministries of priorand ongoing initiatives that couldbe labelled as “gender budgeting”and a listing of the type of gender-disaggregated data, both quantita-tive and qualitative, that was avail-able and accessible in ministries. Itbecame obvious from this thatthere was no area of administra-tion where a gender perspectivewas systematically incorporatedinto mainstream budgeting. At thesame time, the type of data neededto launch initiatives was not read-ily available. Despite the limita-tions, two interesting ongoinginitiatives that were indirectlyrelated to gender budgeting werediscovered (including one in theMinistry of Finance), and two newexpert-led initiatives werelaunched (including one in the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Theseshowed what a gender budgetinginitiative in a ministry might looklike, while at the same time high-lighting its potential results interms of effectiveness and genderequality;

• information sharing and dissemi-nation, which were considered animportant dimension of the pilotproject, included inter alia: compil-ing training materials, reportingon the process and findings ofaction research, organising a feed-back meeting with budget andgender officials of all departments,and producing a concise leafletcontaining easily readable infor-mation.5

Apart from the project at federalgovernment level, there is growingevidence of increased interest ingender budgeting at regional level(both in Flanders and Wallonia), atparliamentary level (a bill has beendrafted) and within civil society (thewomen’s movement is organisingvarious training sessions on theissue).

France

In the year 2000 French Parlia-mentarians called on the governmentto present annual evidence, when thestate budget was drafted, of the finan-cial effort made to promote women’srights and gender equality. This gaverise to the “jaune budgétaire”, theyellow appendix to the budget con-cerning women’s rights and equality.

This document, which providesparliament with information and ameans of monitoring the situation,and which has a legal basis, allowsthe government to display the resultsof its policy as reflected in budgetaryappropriations, gauge the progressmade and pinpoint shortcomings. Itis up to each ministerial departmentto identify and take stock of the meas-

ures it has introduced to foster, orincrease awareness of, gender equal-ity. Each department is also asked toexplain its approach to gender equal-ity and submit the indicators that itconsiders most relevant in the areafor which it is responsible.

The 2004 Charter for Equalitybetween Women and Men, in whichthe ministries and local and regionalauthorities, in particular, undertookto make tangible progress in this fieldover the next three years, and theintroduction of objective-based budg-eting for the preparation of the statebudget will make it clearer how thevarious ministries’ programmes forthe furtherance of this policy fittogether. These two complementary

exercises will in future make it possi-ble to consolidate the steps taken togive a higher profile to the genderequality policy in the state budget.

For instance, the ministry forgender equality and equality in theworkplace will submit to parliamentan annual gender equality pro-gramme setting out objectives andindicators and its own draft budget.Moreover, the “jaune budgétaire” isalso to include a review of the meas-ures provided for in the Charter andwill gradually make it possible tocome up with objectives and indica-tors common to the various govern-ment departments in order to furthera mainstreaming approach to gender

3. For more detailed information, please con-sult Cecchini I./Cornet A./Holvoet N.(2003): Projet “gender budgeting”. Rapport desynthèse/Gendergevoelig budgetteren. Synthe-serapport van het project “gender budgeting” inhet kader van het globaal project “gendermainstreaming” opgericht door het federalebeleidsniveau. Bruxelles/Institut pour l’éga-lité des femmes et des hommes/Instituutvoor de Gelijkheid van Mannen en Vrou-wen, 71 p.

4. Papers and presentations at the conferencehave been compiled in UNIFEM (2002):Gender Budget Initiatives: Strategies, Conceptsand Experiences. New York: UNIFEM.

5. Cecchini I./Cornet A./Holvoet N. (2003):Analyse budgétaire en terme de genre et d’éga-lité hommes/femmes : réduire les inégalités etaméliorer ses performances: un défi pour lesservices publics/Gendergevoelig budgetteren:Ongelijkheid verminderen en efficiëntie verho-gen: een uitdaging voor openbare instellingen.Bruxelles/Brussel/Institut pour l’égalité desfemmes et des hommes/Instituut voor deGelijkheid van Mannen en Vrouwen/8.

Examples of gender budgeting initiatives in Council of Europe member states 29

equality in all the public policies forwhich they are responsible.

Germany6

The German Federal Govern-ment’s inter-ministerial workinggroup on gender mainstreaming(IMA-GM) founded a sub-workinggroup on gender budgeting (UAG-GB)in 2003. This group of gender andbudgeting experts initiated a feasibil-ity study on gender budgeting that isbeing conducted from 2005-2006. Sev-eral federal ministries in Germanyhave already taken important stepstowards gender budgeting as part oftheir gender mainstreaming process.E.g. the ministry of youth has imple-mented a systematic gender controlof important budget titles: Data onthe participation of boys and girls inall actions are provided in yearlyreports which the institutions receiv-ing public funding in this field haveto deliver to the ministry, and genderaspects are analysed. Yearly theGerman Youth Institute (DJI) con-ducts a qualitative scientific surveythat assesses the benefits derived bygirls and boys from the measuresfinanced by the federal ministry andthe advancement of gender policieswithin the institutions that receivepublic funding. Other federal minis-

tries like the ministries of education,of international co-operation or of for-eign affairs or federal institutions likethe federal bureau of political educa-tion have established similarly inter-esting instruments to control andrestructure expenditures.

Several German Länder are in theprocess of implementing genderbudgeting. The State of Berlin (about3.4 million inhabitants) has com-posed an engendered budget for 2006that will be approved of by the stateparliament on 8 December 2005. Theprocess was based on a parliamentaryinitiative and a decision of the mayorand the senate in 2003. In the 2006Berlin budget a part of every minis-try’s budget is analysed from a genderstandpoint starting with the maingroups (Hauptgruppen) 6 (allocationsof financial contributions) and 8(investments). This first stepincludes titles that could be related tomen and women or girls and boys asdirect and indirect beneficiaries.Therefore a gender-disaggregatedbeneficiary analysis was conductedand incorporated into budget. TheBerlin Senate has established a Berlin

commission on gender mainstream-ing and a workgroup on gender budg-eting that includes the NGO “BerlinInitiative for Gender-Just Budgeting”.

On the local level, many citieshave introduced gender budgetingstrategies into their budgets. As oneexample, the local political level inBerlin composed engendered budgetsfor all 12 districts, and the engen-dered budgets have been approved bythe 12 district councils. The district ofLichtenberg (260 000 inhabitants), forinstance, has conducted a gender-beneficiary-analysis of 19 products(16 million euros) of its result-oriented budget and has made theanalysis part of the budget. Theentire Lichtenberg budget contains514.8 million euros, 377.4 millioneuros are social transfer and 85.6 mil-lion euros staff. The informationgathered during the process of ana-lysing the gender benefits from thebudgets (products or titles) are usedto deepen the gender mainstreamingprocess, to create transparency aboutpublic expenditures and to identifyspecific target groups along genderlines.

Ireland

In recent years, legislative reformin Ireland has extended anti-discrimi-nation law to include the provision ofgoods and services, as well as existingprotection in employment. In addi-tion, the equality infrastructure hasbeen strengthened to include anEquality Authority, and a NDPGender Equality Unit.

Gender equality policy has tradi-tionally been implemented throughthe implementation of positive actionmeasures. Currently, within theframework of the National Develop-

ment Plan 2000-2006 (NDP), gendermainstreaming has been adopted toadvance equality of opportunitybetween women and men.

As part of its role to provide sup-port and advice on gender main-streaming to policy makers and pro-gramme implementers, the NDPGender Equality Unit commissioneda pilot research project to explore thepotential use of a gender-sensitiveapproach to budgetary processes.

The primary focus of the researchwas within a regionally based County

Enterprise Board (CEB), whose remitis to promote micro-enterprisesthrough the provision of cash grantsand programmes to support entrepre-neurial and capability development.

Of particular significance, both asaids to the research and as outcomesof the research, was the developmentof two gender analytic tools:• The Template to Promote Gender

Sensitive Budgeting provides amatrix for a gender audit of allfacets of an organisation, includingbudgetary processes. The results

6. Websites :Federal process:www.gender-mainstreaming.net/RedaktionBMFSFJ/RedaktionGM/Pdf-Anlagen/implementation-of-gender-mainstreaming.pdfFederal feasibility study:www.bmfsfj.de/kategorien/Aktuelles/ausschreibungen,did=23218.htmlwww.gender-mainstreaming.net/gm/Aktuelles/newsletter,did=28142.htmlBerlin report:www.berlin.de/SenWiArbFrau/frauen/gender_gs/index.htmlwww.berlin.de/SenWiArbFrau/frauen/doku/gender/d153136_31_08_2004_schlussbericht2.pdfBerlin initiative: www.gender-budgets.de

30 Gender budgeting

http://www.gender-mainstreaming.net/RedaktionBMFSFJ/RedaktionGM/Pdf-Anlagen/implementation-of-gender-mainstreaming.pdf

http://www.bmfsfj.de/kategorien/Aktuelles/ausschreibungen,did=23218.html

http://www.bmfsfj.de/kategorien/Aktuelles/ausschreibungen,did=23218.html

http://www.gender-mainstreaming.net/gm/Aktuelles/newsletter,did=28142.html

http://www.berlin.de/SenWiArbFrau/frauen/gender_gs/index.html

http://www.gender-budgets.de

of the audit become a benchmarkof the organisation’s overallgender sensitivity, while at thesame time providing the basis for astrategy by which the organisationcan enhance its gender capacity.

• The Funding Map promotes a newway of looking at budgets, toinclude a broader range of person-nel, as well as new perspectivesthat encourage a proactive linkbetween financial administration

and programme delivery. As wellas demonstrating the gap betweenpolicy-making and resource alloca-tion, the Funding Map allows forthe identification of flexibility inbudgetary processes. A logical pro-gression from the Funding Map isto apply other gender budget tools,such as gender disaggregated ben-eficiary analysis and gender disag-gregated incidence analysis.

A key dimension of the researchwas an examination of the constraintsplaced on funding provided by thenational government to the CEB. Inthis context, the gender budgetingpilot facilitated the exploration of theinfluence of economic theory on eco-nomic policy, and the subsequentimplications for social policy and, inparticular, on the implementation ofgender mainstreaming.

Norway

Norway has a long tradition ofgender mainstreaming as one amongother approaches to promotinggender equality. The responsibility ofall public authorities for promotinggender equality in their fields ofaction is enshrined in the GenderEquality Act of 1979. The provisionwas strengthened when the Act wasrevised in 2002 and the duty to pro-mote gender equality in an active,planned and systematic manner wasextended to private sector organisa-tions. A further requirement wasintroduced, namely to report ongender equality in the annualaccounts (in the budget proposalswhere the Ministries are concerned).The obligation to report on genderequality is limited to the field of per-sonnel policy.

Since 2002, the Ministry of Chil-dren and Family Affairs has co-ordi-nated an initiative aimed at main-streaming a gender perspective in theNorwegian state budget. Three con-secutive Government budget propos-als (2003, 2004, and 2005) have pre-sented an annex presenting genderanalyses relating to a broad variety ofbudget areas. Despite the lack of obli-gation (the ministries have beeninvited to contribute), nearly all theministries have contributed. A Com-mittee of State Secretaries on GenderEquality has been entrusted by thegovernment with responsibility fordeveloping the gender budgetingprocess. Some systematic genderbased assessments of programmesresource allocation have resultedfrom this process in the areas o youthpolicy, food production and reindeerhusbandry. Apart from these,increased visibility and attention paidto gender aspects can be noted in a

wide range of policy and budgetareas. Critics have pointed out thatimpact was limited to relativelyminor budget allocations whileneglecting the macro level. Follow-upof findings has also been limited. In2005, the Government decided toreform the process with a view toimproving quality and impact.

In the state budget proposition for2006, all the ministries wererequested to report on gender basedassessments in their own line budgetpropositions. The extent of both thegender analyses and level of detailreported is left up to the individualminister. Guidelines will be issued bythe end of 2005 to facilitate the proc-ess and further improve the integra-tion of a gender perspective in theGovernment’s budget proposition for2007. An inter-ministerial workinggroup, under the auspices of theCommittee of State Secretaries onGender Equality and assisted by anexternal expert, prepares the guide-lines. The Gender Equality Annexhas been transformed to reflect themacro level better. The National Sta-tistical Office was commissioned bythe Ministry of Children and FamilyAffairs to prepare a report on income,employment and time use by gender.An inter-ministerial reference group,including amongst others the Minis-try of Finance and the Ministry ofLabour and Social Affairs, monitoredthe preparation of the report, whichwas presented along with the 2006budget proposition last October. Theintention is that the new GenderEquality Annex will be more interest-ing and useful to the parliament andto the ministries, other public author-ities and the external public. The con-tent of and approach to macro-level

gender analysis of the budget will bereviewed annually. An external eval-uation has been commissioned andwill monitor the reorganised genderbudget process over a three yearperiod.

Training and awareness-raisinghave been core elements of thegender budget process since its incep-tion. A seminar open to participationfrom all the Nordic countries wasorganised in 2003 with the aim ofinvolving members of parliament,NGOs, the media and the researchcommunity. In January 2004, a semi-nar organised by the Committee ofState Secretaries on Gender Equalitywas attended by the majority of min-istries, as well as some county gover-nors and certain government agen-cies. At this seminar we were able topresent concrete examples of differ-ential distribution of public resourcesthat have been revealed as a result ofgender-based assessments of budgetlines at both local/regional andnational level. Small-scale trainingworkshops have targeted budget offi-cials, gender contacts and policy offi-cials in the ministries. A core ele-ment of the Norwegian pilot project isthe close co-operation within theMinistry of Children and FamilyAffairs between the Department ofCo-ordination and Planning and theDepartment of Family Affairs, Child-Care and Gender Equality. Good-quality gender-disaggregated statis-tics are a key prerequisite for genderbudgeting. The Ministry for Childrenand Family Affairs finances a genderfocal point with the National Statisti-cal Office with a view to co-ordinatingand improving the presentation andanalysis of gender statistics. The focalpoint has also been instrumental in


accomplishing the 2006 GenderEquality Annex to the budget pro-posal.

Gender-sensitive budgets are a keypoint in the Nordic Co-operationAction Plan on Gender Equality 2001-2005. The Ministers of Finance andGender Equality jointly decided tolaunch a Nordic co-operation projectwith the aim of incorporating agender equality perspective in budg-eting both at the Nordic and atnational level. The project involvesaction at both the Nordic and national

level and started early in 2004. As acontribution to the Nordic project,the Ministry of Children and FamilyAffairs financed a small R&D projecton gender and the distribution ofpublic resources in the health sector,based in Sweden with a parallel studyin Norway. The results of these stud-ies are most interesting. The Swedishstudy documents how femalepatients suffering from skin diseasessuch as psoriasis receive fewerresources in terms of treatment thanmale patients suffering the same dis-

eases (diseases that are similar andequally distributed between womenand men). The study calculates theamount of public resources thatwould be spent if all patients weretreated the same as male patients(male norm), if they were treatedaccording to a “female norm” or agender neutral norm – only accord-ing to their diagnosis. The resultsindicate that a closer scrutiny of thehuge allocations over the state budgetto public health could be worthwhile.

Poland

Women NGOs in Poland areactively working on implementationof gender budgets. The internationalnetwork of organisations working ongender budgets has been created andpreliminary research has been done.The next step forward has been the“Gdansk Gender Budget Initiative”that was created as a pilot project onthe local level. Its methodology wasadjusted and approved on the basis ofa comparative study of best practicesand the examples of the genderbudget analysis from other countries.A very important aspect was the co-operation with gender budget ana-lysts from other countries (e.g. BerlinGBI consultants) as well as establish-ing contacts with the local GdanskCity Hall. At the beginning statisticaldata were collected from variouspublic and non-public institutions infour focus areas: domestic violence,unemployment and labour market,health, education. On the basis ofpreliminary research, the need for adeeper analysis was identified in

areas of local public expenditure onlabour market with a special focus onunemployment.

The next stage consisted in thedevelopment of questionnaires, send-ing them out and collecting data. Inthe meantime several visits were paidin the institutions that play the keyrole in strategic planning and deci-sion making in Gdansk. NEWWreceived also information from localNGOs about the initiatives carried outby them in Gdansk that concernedthe labour market. After drawing theconclusions based in addition oncomparison with foreign examplesand solutions already implemented,the information was published in areport (first publication in Polish ongender budget) and disseminatedwidely (several conferences, work-shops and lectures about genderbudgeting took place in Warsaw, onein Cracow). The report used anumber of different sources and ref-erences. They were of uneven qualityhence the analysis is not always on

the same level of detail. It concen-trated on identifying actions whichare gender sensitive. Gender perspec-tive was applied in macroeconomicand regional analysis. The reportbecame an incentive to further dis-cussion on the problems vital toGdansk and possible solutions. It isalso a suggestion that analysis of thattype can be a tool to fight discrimina-tion. It clearly stated that genderbudgeting is an excellent instrumentfor the city, local authorities and localcommunity. Thanks to NEWW’Sgender budget analysis – strategiesand projects are more transparent. Ithelps to integrate and publiciseefforts for the benefit of the localcommunity. In the very near futureNEWW-Polka is going to organisetraining sessions for the local consult-ants in gender budgeting, and as aresult 18 people from various cities inPoland could disseminate the infor-mation and be local advisors on thistopic in the future. (Further readingat: http://www.neww.org/.)

Spain

Gender budget initiative in the Basque government

The “Gender Budget” experience7

is an initiative of Emakunde/BasqueWomen’s Institute (Basque Govern-ment, Basque Country, Spain) tomainstream the gender perspectiveinto the budgets of any public admin-istration, which is included in the IIIPlan of Affirmative Action for BasqueWomen: “Gender Perspective in

Public Policy”, in its first chapter:“Building up the normative and pre-scriptive capacity to develop gender-sensitive policies from the BasquePolitical Institutions”. From 1999 on,Maunder has fostered severalprojects in this direction:• The elaboration of a detailed

Smart Digital Library (“PublicGender Budgets”) with openaccess through the Internet (http://www.emakunde.es/)

• Basque Government Interdepart-mental Committee Seminar

• A follow-up Seminar held byEmakunde (Dr Diane Elson).In 2001, they decided to move on

into the practical field to implement apilot project within the Basqueadministration. A working group hasbeen created, promoted byEmakunde, involving several depart-ments and being assisted by RonaFitzgerald. A technical team was also

7. All materials can be found on: http://www.emakunde.es/.

32 Gender budgeting

created to support the whole experi-ence and the people taking part in it.

In 2002, a pilot initiative was car-ried out with the participation of sixBasque Government Departments. It

finished with a closing conferencewith contributions of national andinternational experts

Basque Government Working Group

Sectoral Reports Reports presented bythe different departments participat-

ing in the “Gender Budget Initiative”.Seminar, December 2002.

Handbook Gender Responsive Budg-eting in the Autonomous Communityof the Basque Country.

Sweden

Similar to Norway, Sweden has along tradition of gender mainstream-ing. In 1994 the government adoptedgender mainstreaming as its princi-pal strategy for achieving the policygoals for gender equality. Since thendifferent measures have been takento implement the strategy. However,in 2001 a working group appointed bythe government presented a numberof proposals to intensify the gendermainstreaming work, where the gov-ernment offices were identified as akey actor. As a result, in the end of2002 a high-level steering committeewas appointed by the government toaddress issues concerning the imple-mentation of gender mainstreamingin the government offices such assteering mechanisms, training, meth-ods and gender focal points at theministries. Parallel to this work andin cooperation with the steering com-mittee, a gender budgeting projectcalled “An equal share” was launchedto start the gender budgeting work inthe government offices. The projectfocused on method development,identifying training requirementsand collecting information aboutwhat is needed to ensure that agender perspective is successfullymainstreamed into budgetary work.The project has been carried out inco-operation between the Division for

Gender Equality and the BudgetDepartment of the Ministry ofFinance. An important part of theproject has been a pilot project, inwhich a number of operational divi-sions performed gender analyses inthree policy areas (regional develop-ment, social services and transport).Via this project the ground has beenlaid for starting the gender budgetingprocess on a wide front, aiming atmaking gender visible throughout thewhole state budgetary process.

However, the task of mainstream-ing a gender perspective into thebudgetary process has now moved onfrom the project stage and become anintegral part of the government regu-lar work via two different decisions.In an action plan for gender equalitypresented to the parliament in June2003, the government undertook toconduct gender equality analysis inall policy areas with a view to defin-ing objectives and outcome indicatorsfor gender equality – i.e. the firstphase of the gender budgeting proc-ess. The work started in the autumnof 2004 and the results will be pre-sented to parliament in 2006. Thismeans laying the foundation formaking visible to what extent and onwhat terms the resources within thedifferent policy areas in the statebudget are being distributed to differ-

ent groups of women and men, girlsand boys. It will make it possible toevaluate the results as a basis forredistribution and measures to pro-mote gender equality. Also, as aresult of the steering committee’swork and the project “An equal share”in April 2004, the governmentadopted a plan for implementinggender mainstreaming in the govern-ment offices during the years 2004-2009 with special focus on the budget-ary process, The plan will be followedup yearly and more qualitativelyevaluated every second year.

In order to fulfil the commitmentsof the governments plan for gendermainstreaming as well as carrythrough the work with gender analy-sis and formulation of gender equal-ity objectives, strategically placedgender equality coordinators havebeen appointed and organisations forgender equality co-ordination havebeen established in all ministries. In2004-2005 their main task is to co-ordinate the process of gender analy-sis and formulation of gender equal-ity objectives for the policy areaswithin their respective ministries. Tosupport this work, the gender equal-ity co-ordinators and the staff of theDivision for Gender Equality are par-ticipating in a 12-month professionaldevelopment programme focused on

Departments Selected programmes

Home Office Citizenship Training for Emergencies

Industry, Trade and Tourism Technological Centres

Transport, Public Buildings and Infrastructures Transport

Health System Funding and Self-Help Groups

Culture Sports

Land and Environment Environmental Education


developing the participants’ consulta-tive role in the process. Also specialtraining programmes and continuousexpert guidance are provided for theadministrative officers working withthe analyses in the ministries. Thetraining is primarily built upon amethod of analysis called GERACBase that has been specifically devel-oped for the process.

Also, over the last years the gov-ernment has further developed anappendix of the state budget on thedistribution of economic resourcesbetween women and men. It wasintroduced back in 1988 as an appen-dix of the gender equality part of thestate budget. However, it did not gainmuch attention until 2003 when itwas made into an appendix to thefinancial forecast of the state budget

for 2004 and developed further notonly to summarise the economic situ-ation, but also to analyse the effectsof the welfare system on differentgroups of women and men.

Apart from the national level,there are examples of gender budget-ing work at regional and local level,for instance at the county council ofStockholm and the city of Gutenberg.

Switzerland

Gender Budget Project of the City of Basel8

In the course of the recession inthe early 1990s the Swiss Conferenceof Gender Equality Delegates and theSwiss Union of Public Servants com-missioned a private institute with thetask creating a tool to indicate assimply as possible whether cutbacksin the state expenses were affectingthe sexes unequally.

The key elements of this analyti-cal tool are: to examine changes overlonger time frames; to compare peri-ods of expansion with periods ofeconomy; to examine whether anitem that is particularly relevant forwomen or men changed to a differentextent from the average expenditure.Another feature of this method ofanalysis is that comparisons did not

involve sums of money, but devia-tions from average growth.

This tool examined effects onpublic employment, benefit ofexpenses and follow-up costs forunpaid work for women especially.

The results can be found in the1996 publication: An den Frauen spa-ren? (Saving on women). The BaselParliament subsequently authorised,thanks to considerable public rela-tions work by the Women’s Counciland politicians, the elaboration of dif-ferentiated statistical material forBasel-City. This mandate alsoallowed the public Equal RightsOffice and the Office of Statistics tobe brought in for consultation. Theresult is a highly detailed incidenceanalysis. In this analysis over 90% of

spending could be attributed to one ofthe genders. The study has been pub-lished under the title Der kleine Unter-schied in den Staatsfinanzen (the smalldifference in state finances).

In July 2005 the governmentdecided that this incidence analysison public spending should be broughtup to date on an annual basis. Alsothe statistical data shall be brought upto date every fourth year. The resultsand changes during a given space oftime are to be regularly publishedwith the budget. In addition, adetailed analysis of a partial domainin the field of education by means ofindicators and reference numbers isto be conducted with the help ofexternal specialists.

Turkey

Gender Budgeting Experience in Turkey

Gender budgeting is a new subjectin Turkey with very limited applica-tion. The public institutions andNGOs are not much aware of this con-cept and approach and until recentlythe objective conditions were hardlyconducive to practice. Thanks tosome positive developments regard-ing capacity building of the nationalmachinery for gender equality andrestructuring of the budgetary proc-ess, it can be assumed that now apotential exists for introduction ofgender budgeting.

The only known example ofgender budgeting in Turkey is theconditional cash transfer for increas-ing school enrolment of children. As

the school attendance level of girls islower than boys in primary and sec-ondary education, girls cannot bene-fit from the services and expendi-tures of the Ministry of Education atthe same level as boys. Gender budg-eting foresees a restructuring of reve-nues and expenditures in order topromote gender equality, and aproject developed by the World Bankapplied in co-operation with the Min-istry of Education aims to supportthis goal. The umbrella project (2002-2006), implemented through the Gen-eral Directorate for Social Help andSolidarity at the national level with abudget of 500 million US dollars, isabout minimising social risks. One of

the components of this project is theconditional cash transfer for poorfamilies helping them to send theirchildren to primary and secondaryschools. Under the project, the firststep taken by a poor family con-fronted with a financial crisis is toremove children from school andsend them to work. In co-operationwith the Ministry of Education, onthe condition that they send theirchildren to school, families are paid acertain amount of money. Althoughrelative small in amount, the pay-ment is higher for girls – 22.2%higher for girls than boys in primaryschool and 39.2% in secondaryschool. From the beginning of the

8. For more detailed information: http://www.frauenrat-bs.ch/gender-budget/.

34 Gender budgeting

project up to 2005, 535 917 girls and632 863 boys benefited from thispractice. Although there are fewergirls than the boys, the total sum paiduntil now is higher for the girls. Inthis system, the payment is made tomothers. Each has her own bankaccount and they personally receivethe money. This form of payment is

very important to empower womenin the family.

The positive results of the projectare evident in the increasing schoolenrolment of children, but especiallygirls and their growing schoolachievement. According to the resultsof the project, in 2003-2004 the rate ofgirls attending secondary school after

grade 8 is 75.4% for the supportedfamilies, compared to a general aver-age of 38.7% in Turkey. These ratesare 74% and 47% respectively for theboys. The positive impact of theproject with gender budgeting is clearfrom these statistics.

United Kingdom

Gender Impact Analysis and the Scottish Budget

The Scottish Executive has out-lined its plan for achieving equalitythrough adopting a mainstreamingapproach – bringing equality consid-erations to the mainstream policyprocess. The “Equality Strategy9”,published in November 2000, sets outa number of actions that underpinthe commitment to mainstreamingand this includes developing mecha-nisms for equality impact assessmentof budgets and spending plans.

The work to develop tools forgender analysis of the budget is pro-gressing through pilot work with theHealth Department and with theSport division in Culture Tourism andSport. Given the nature of health ine-qualities in Scotland and the impor-tance of health policy within publicpolicy, this work provides an oppor-tunity to start with an issue, in thiscase health inequality, and to applygender impact analysis to the policyand resource allocation process inrespect of this issue.

The pilot work began in January2005 and has focused on whetherthere are gender differences inresponse to initiatives within both thehealth and sport portfolios and tomake connections that underline thecross-cutting nature of inequality.The programmes selected are thesmoking prevention/cessation pro-gramme and the active schools pro-gramme. This reflects the decision to

focus on health inequalities amongstyoung people in Scotland in order tomake the work feasible in the timeperiod assigned to the pilots.

In addition, the work was struc-tured in a way so that it draws out les-sons in respect of linking the policyand resource allocation processes andprovides a worked example of how toapproach gender budget analysiswithin the Scottish Executive. Themethodology involves:• A literature review identifying evi-

dence of gender differences in thepolicy area.

• Mapping both the policy formula-tion and resource allocation proc-esses with respect to these twoinitiatives through interviews withkey actors within the Executiveand in public bodies involved inthe delivery of the initiatives.

• The elaboration of guidance forofficials drawing on lessons fromthe pilot work and internationalbest practice.

• The production of a report on theprogress of the pilots that encapsu-lates the literature reviews, analy-sis of the results and somerecommendations for future workon gender budget analysis.

• A brief outline of the pilot work forinclusion in the draft budget to bepresented in September 2005.

• An Action Plan for the next phaseof the work within the ScottishExecutiveThe initiative is being led by the

Equality Unit and the Finance

Department of the Scottish Execu-tive. The Equality Unit brought in aproject worker for six months to mapthe policy and resource allocationprocesses and to focus on the healthpilot. A team at Glasgow CaledonianUniversity undertook the literaturereview on sport and also evaluatedthe active schools programmes. Inaddition, the project had two advisorswith established technical expertisein the area of gender budget analysis.The objective of the pilot is to iden-tify the principal mechanismsinvolved in meeting the commitmentto gender budget analysis, outlined inthe Equality Strategy 2000, and toinform future work on gender budgetanalysis and equality proofing theScottish budget. Therefore, a keyrequirement is to make the linkbetween policy objectives, prioritiesfor intervention and the resourceallocation process.

In working towards assessing theequality impact of budgets andspending plans, the Executive hasdecided initially to focus on gender,as it is in this area that there havebeen most developments in othercountries from which lessons can belearned. In addition, data is morereadily available for gender thanother equality areas. Gender analysiscan also be used as a lens to revealfactors that contribute to inequalitiesfor groups across the wider equalityspectrum.

Nordic Council of Ministers

The Nordic Council of Ministers isconducting a Nordic co-operationproject between 2004-2006 intended

to further the integration of a genderand equality perspective into Nordicfinancial policy. In the Nordic coun-

tries there are a number of studiesthat highlight gender equality issueswithin different policy areas:

9. Equality Strategy: Working together forequality. Scottish Executive, November2000.


• Budget supplements: Allocation ofeconomic resources betweenwomen and men

• Study of the allocation of resourceswithin the reindeer industry

• Study: Gender perspectives inhealthcare

• Study of the allocation of resourceswithin agriculture

• Study of the municipal budget• Study of support to culture and

recreational activities for youth• Study of the equal opportunities

for boys and girls programme

• Analysis: Gender analysis of occu-pational health and safety lawsMore information on this project

and studies can be found on the Website http://www.norden.org/gender.

36 Gender budgeting

Appendix I 37

Appendix I

Members of the Group of Specialists on Gender Budgeting (EG-S-GB)

Albania

• Ms Lavdie Ruci

General Secretary, Ministry of Cul-ture, Youth and Sports

Austria

• Ms Gabriele Michalitsch

Chair of the Group EG-S-GB. Pro-fessor, Department of Economics III,Vienna University of Economics andBusiness Administration

Belgium

• Ms Nathalie HolvoetResearcher, Institute of Develop-

ment Policy and Management(IDPM)

France

• Mr Xavier FromentAdjoint de la chef de service, Ser-

vice des Droits des Femmes et del’Egalité, Ministère de la Parité et del’Egalité professionnelle

Norway

• Ms Anne HavnørVice-Chair of the Group EG-S-GB.

Counsellor, Ministry of Children andFamily Affairs

Sweden

• Ms Anna-Marie SandquistExpert on gender budget, Ministry

of Industry, Employment and Com-munications, Division for GenderEquality

38 Gender budgeting

Appendix II

Terms of reference of the Group of Specialists on Gender Budgeting (EG-S-GB)

1. Name of the Committee

Group of Specialists on GenderBudgeting (EG-S-GB)

2. Type of Committee

Committee of experts

3. Source of Terms of Reference

Steering Committee for Equalitybetween Women and Men (CDEG)

4. Terms of reference

Under the authority of the Steer-ing Committee for Equality betweenWomen and Men (CDEG), the groupof specialists is instructed to draftguidelines for member states eitheron introducing gender budgeting orwhen considering reforms in thisfield.

When developing these guidelines,the group shall take due account ofthe work already carried out in thisarea by the CDEG, the EuropeanUnion, the Nordic Council of Minis-ters and other international organisa-tions.

5. Composition

a. The group is composed of six spe-cialists from the followingmember states: Albania, Austria,Belgium, France, Norway, Sweden.

b. The Council of Europe budget willbear the travelling and subsistenceexpenses of one specialist fromeach of the above-mentionedcountries. Other member statescan appoint specialists to attendthe meetings of the group at theirown expense.

c. Desirable qualifications of personsserving on the group of specialists:experts and researchers in thefield of gender mainstreaming, inparticular in gender budgeting.

d. The Parliamentary Assembly ofthe Council of Europe and theCongress of Local and RegionalAuthorities of the Council ofEurope may each appoint a repre-sentative to attend meetings of thegroup, without the right to vote butwith defrayal of expenses at the

charge of their respective Votes ofthe Ordinary Budget.

e. The Advisory Committee on EqualOpportunities for Women and Menof the European Commission andthe Committee on Women’s Rightsand Equal Opportunities of theEuropean Parliament may sendrepresentatives to attend meetingsof the group, without the right tovote or defrayal of expenses.

6. Working methods

Within the framework of its termsof reference, the group shall have thepossibility to have whatever contactsor consultations with interested pro-fessionals and others that it deemsnecessary for the implementation ofits terms of reference, in particularthrough hearings or written consulta-tions.

7. Duration of the terms of reference

These terms of reference expire on31 December 2004.

Appendix III

Questionnaire on gender budgeting sent to the members of the CDEG

1. What has been done to implementgender mainstreaming in thebudgetary process in your country(local, regional and/or nationallevel)?

2. What motivates this gender budgetprocess?

3. What policy areas are involved?

• Education

• Labour market

• Regional development

• Transportation

• Health care

• Others … (please specify).

4. Who are the actors involved andwhat roles do they play?

5. How is the allocation of humanand financial resources organised?

6. To what extent are gender-disag-gregated statistics available relat-

ing to the gender budget initiative?Who provides these statistics?

• Central statistics office

ACTEURS

RO

LE

S

Initi

ate

Res

earc

h

Adv

ocac

y L

obby

ing

Impl

emen

t

Co-

ordi

nate

Eva

luat

e

Tech

nica

l sup

port

and

tr

aini

ng

Fina

ncia

l sup

port

Oth

ers

(ple

ase

spec

ify)

International organisations

Ministry of Finance or other ministry responsible for the finance/budget (specify)

Parliament

National Equality Machinery

Civil Society (NGOs, trade unions, associa-tions, etc.)

Independent experts

Local/regional authorities

Others … (please specify)

Appendix III 39

• Local authority

• Private institute

• Research Institute

• Other … (please specify)

7. Has any feasibility study been car-ried out on gender budgeting? If

so, please provide any relevantinformation.

8. Have you encountered anyobstacles and/or problems in theimplementation of gender main-streaming in the budgetary proc-ess?

9. What concrete examples of genderbudgeting initiatives exist at local/regional/national level? If possi-ble, please use the attached formfor the presentation of examples.

Appendix to the questionnaire form for the presentation of gender budgeting projects

Brief description of the budgetary process

Brief description of the gender budgeting project

Who took the initiative to start the project?

Who is in charge of its implementation?

When did the project start? How long is it expected to last?

What is the aim of the project? (Describe the contents briefly)

What results are expected?

What policy areas are concerned? (Labour market, education, health care, transport policy, etc.)

What policy levels are concerned? (National, regional, local)

What techniques and tools are used to put the project into practice?

Is there a need to develop new tools?

Who are the actors involved in the implementation of the project? (Ministry, parliament, NGOs, etc.)

40 Gender budgeting

Have they had special training? What training do they need?

What are the results of the project so far?

What problems have been encountered in the implementation of the project?

How have they been overcome?

Who is responsible for monitoring the project?

What methods are used for monitoring?

Please give references for further reading about the project (articles, reports, etc. – in English or French if possible)

Who can be contacted for more information about the project?

Appendix III 41

Appendix IV

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Bakker, Isabella, Elson, Diane (1998): Für ein Budget, das mit Frauen rechnet. Ansätze zu einer makroökonomischen Analyse von Staatsbudgets aus Frauensicht. In: Olympe. Feministische Arbeitshefte zur Politik 9, p. 50-61.

BEIGEWUM (Beirat für gesellschafts-, wirtschafts- und umweltpolitische Alternativen)

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Bellamy, Kate (2002): Gender Budgeting. A Background Paper for the Council of Europe’s Informal Group of Experts on Gender Budgeting. CDEG-GB (2002) 4.

BMF (Bundesministerium für Finanzen) (2002): Is the Austrian tax

system really “gender-neutral”? Results of a wage- and income-tax comparison between men and women. Wien. (http://www.bmf.gv.at).

Budlender, Debbie, Elson, Diane, Hewitt, Guy, Mukhopadhyay, Tanni (2002): Gender Budgets Make

Cents. Understanding Gender Responsive Budgets. Commonwealth Secretariat/London.

Budlender, Debbie, Hewitt, Guy

(2002): Gender Budgets Make More Cents. Country Studies and Good Practice, Commonwealth Secretariat/London.

Budlender, Debbie, Sharp, Rhonda, Allen, Kerri (1998): How

to do a gender-sensitive budget analysis: contemporary research and practice. Canberra/London.

Çalar, Gülay (2002): Engendering der Makroökonomie: Chancen und Grenzen feministischer Ansätze. In: femina politica, 1/2002, p. 48-57.

Cecchini, Isabel, Cornet, Annie et Holvoet, Nathalie (2003): Projet

« gender budgeting » (dans le cadre du projet global « gender mainstreaming ». Rapport de synthèse/Gendergevoelig budgetteren. Syntheserapport van het project “gender budgeting” in het kader van het globaal project “gender mainstreaming” opgericht door het federale beleidsniveau. Brussel, Institut pour l’égalité des femmes et des hommes/Instituut voor de Gelijkheid van Mannen en Vrouwen.

Cecchini, Isabel, Cornet, Annie et Holvoet, Nathalie (2003): Analyse

budgétaire en terme de genre et d’égalité hommes/femmes : réduire les inégalités et améliorer ses performances : un défi pour les services publics/Gendergevoelig budgetteren: Ongelijkheid verminderen en efficiëntie verhogen:

een uitdaging voor openbare instellingen. Brussel, Institut pour l’égalité des femmes et des hommes.

Elson, Diane (1997): Tools for Gender Integration into Macroeconomic Policy. In: Link in to Gender and Development 2/Summer 1997, p. 13.

Elson, Diane (1999): Commonwealth Gender Responsive Budget Initiative: Background Papers. London/Commonwealth Secretariat.

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Gubitzer, Luise, Trukeschitz, Birgit (eds., 2004): Frauen und

Budgets. Frankfurt/Berlin/Bern.

Himmelweit, Susan (2002): Making visible the hidden economy: the case for gender impact analysis of economic policy. In: Feminist Economics, Vol. 1/8, p. 49-70.

Himmelweit, Susan (2001): Tools for Budget Impact Analysis: Taxes and Benefits, UNIFEM-OECD-Nordic Council Conference on Gender Responsive Budgeting.

Brussels, October 2001.

42 Gender budgeting

Hofbauer Balmori, Helena (2003):

Gender and Budgets. Overview Report. Brighton (http://www.ids.ac.uk/bridge/).

Hunt, Karen, Budlender, Debbie

(1998, eds.): Money matters – Women and the Government Budget. Capetown.

Manske, Alexandra, Young, Brigitte (2002): Engendering der

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Michalitsch, Gabriele (2001):

Budgetäre Imperative patriarchaler Restrukturierung. Über geschlechterpolitische Defizite. In: WIWIPOL (ed.): Wirtschafts- und sozialpolitische Alternativen zum Regierungsprogramm. Wien, p. 47-62.

Michalitsch, Gabriele (2003): Wer, wie viel, für was? Gender Budgeting und öffentliche Finanzen. In: Dack-weiler, Regina Maria/Hornung, Ursula (eds.): Frauen-Macht-Geld. Münster, p. 228-244.

Michalitsch, Gabriele (2005): L’état c’est lui. Budget-Entwürfe feministischer Theorie. In: Gubitzer, Luise/Trukeschitz, Birgit (eds.): Frauen und Budgets. Frankfurt/Berlin/Bern.

Rake, Katherine (2002): Gender Budgets. The Experience of the UK’s Women’s Budget Group. In: Frauenrat Basel-Stadt/Gleichstellungsbüro Basel-Stadt (ed.): Gender Balance – Equal Finance. Basel, p. 14-20.

Reeves, Hazel, Sever, Charlie (2003): Gender and Budgets. Supporting Resources Collection. Brighton (http://www.ids.ac.uk/bridge/).

Sarraf, Feridoun (2003): Gender-Responsive Government Budgeting.

IMF Working Paper.

Sen, Gita (2000): Gender Mainstreaming in Finance Ministries. In: World Development 28/7.

Sen, Gita (2002): Engendering von Finanzministerien. In: Femina politica 1/2002, p. 58-70.

Sharp, Rhonda (2003): Budgeting for equity. Gender budget initiatives within a framework of performance oriented budgeting. UNIFEM/New York.

Sharp, Rhonda, Broomhill, Ray

(2002): Budgeting for Equality: The Australian Experience. In: Feminist Economics Vol. 1/8, p. 25-4.

UNIFEM (2002): Gender Budget Initiatives: Strategies, Concepts and Experiences. UNIFEM/New York.

Web sites of international organisations

UNIFEM www.unifem.org/www/genderbudgets/work/html

UNDP www.undp.org/gender

World Bank www.worldbank.org/wbi/publicfinance/gender/htm

International Monetary Fund www.imf.org

OECD www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2002doc.nsf

The Commonwealth Secretariat www.thecommonwealth.org/gender

Asian Development Bank www.unisa.edu.au/pacificproject/

International Development Research Center-Canada (IDCR)

www.idrc.ca/gender

Gender responsive budget initiatives www.gender-budgets.org

Nordic Council of Ministers www.norden.org/gender

Web sites of Council of Europe member states

Austria http://www.bmf.gv.at

Germany http://www.gender-budgets.de

Poland http://www.neww.org

Sweden http://www.naring.regeringen.se

Switzerland http://www.frauenrat-bs.ch/gender-budget/

Appendix IV 43

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