Gender Responsive Budgeting

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The following documents were recently added to the website. Please visit regularly for new uploads.

Impact of Gender Budgeting on Women Empowerment

UNIFEM's work in support of gender responsive budgeting

Budget Support: As good as the strategy it finances

Gender and Participatory Budgeting- DFID

Application of the gender policy marker by German Bilateral Development Agencies

Morocco Gender Report 2008

How do DAC statistics measure gender equality focused aid?

Gender Budgeting Guidelines and Analytical Tools at local level in Uganda

Genre et décentralisation au Sénégal

Rapport du Séminaire sur la prise en compte du genre dans le travail parlementaire- Burundi 2008

Gender Budgets: an overview- Canada

WHAT IS GRB?

"Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is about ensuring that government budgets and the policies and programs that underlie them address the needs and interests of individuals that belong to different social groups. Thus, GRB looks at biases that can arise because a person is male or female, but at the same time considers disadvantage suffered as a result of ethnicity, caste, class or poverty status, location and age. GRB is not about separate budgets for women or men nor about budgets divided equally. It is about determining where the needs of men and women are the same, and where they differ. Where the needs are different, allocations should be different."

Debbie Budlender 2006

Gender Responsive Budget Initiatives Brochure

NEW! GRB VIDEOS

MOROCCO

Gender-responsive budgeting is a crucial tool for women’s empowerment. In Morocco, UNIFEM has worked with the government to create a more tailored approach in which budgeting can have a more effective and immediate impact. As this documentary illustrates, when the needs of women living in a particular geographical and cultural context are addressed, the entire community benefits. In the past four years, the Finance Ministry of Morocco has made substantial progress in developing both gender-responsive and results-oriented budgetary reform.

Click here to watch Morocco video

BOLIVIA

In Cochabamba, Bolivia, UNIFEM has made significant strides in teaching local women how to seek local government funding for projects that can benefit them. UNIFEM developed and sponsored local workshops in which women were educated on the city budget: where government money comes from, how it is distributed, and what strategies to use in applying for government funds. The workshops helped the women envision a new potential for what they can do for themselves, and helped them better understand what kinds of demands they can make on their own government.

Click here to watch Bolivia video

INDIA

Incorporating a gender perspective in government budgets can ensure that resources are allocated towards women's priorities to eliminate gender gaps. This can be achieved through women's participation in budget policymaking and gender budget analysis. This video presents show how this is working in practice in a GRB initiative supported by UNIFEM in Mysore, India.

Click here to watch India video

Key Resources

Budgeting to Fulfill International Gender and Human Rights Commitments

TITLE: 'Budgeting to Fulfill International Gender and Human Rights Commitments' Booklet
AUTHOR: Debbie Budlender
DATE: 2004

This booklet by Debbie Budlender explains how CEDAW can be used as a tool for securing women’s rights through gender responsive budgeting. The publication includes budget checklists for CEDAW articles and outcome indicators based on the Beijing Platform for Action. The booklet was commissioned by UNIFEM through its Regional Office for Southern Africa, and uses the region as an example.

Budgeting to Fulfill International Gender and Human Rights Commitments

Budgeting to Fulfill International Gender Commitments

Author: Debbie Budlender, Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE).

This booklet was commissioned by the Southern African Regional Office (SARO) of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM. UNIFEM’s SARO has been supporting GRB work in the region for many years. It sees this booklet as yet another way in which it can link the work on GRB and rights.

Budgeting to Fulfill International Gender and Human Rights Commitments

Building Budgets from Below

TITLE: Building Budgets from Below
AUTHOR: AHALYA S. BHAT, SUMAN KOLHAR, AARATHI CHELLAPPA AND ANAND. H DATE: 2003

The following document, a product of a UNIFEM supported program, is one of 7 analytical reports on Gender Responsive Budgets that were completed and published in the ‘Follow the Money' Series, South Asia. The well-received reports, have been in wide demand by GRB practitioners from around the world. This initiative has also been highly influential in the increase of allocations reflecting women’s priorities as well as the inclusion of women in the planning process of economic governance at the local level in India.

Building Budgets from Below

Can civil society add value to budget decision-making? A description of civil society budget work

Author: Warren Krafchik International Budget Project

This paper examines the expanding contribution of civil society organizations to public budgets in developing countries. It provides examples of civil society budget activities in a variety of country contexts in order to measure the value of this work to public budgeting.

Can civil society add value to budget decision-making?

Capacity Development for Promoting Gender Equality in the Aid Effectiveness Agenda

Capacity Development for Promoting Gender Equality in the Aid Effectiveness Agenda: Lessons from Sub-regional Consultations in Africa. UNIFEM Discussion Paper, September 2007

This discussion paper outlines a capacity development strategy for advancing development effectiveness and gender equality in the new aid agenda. To date, few national development plans have strong gender equality elements, while national gender equality action plans have little or no connection to national development strategies. Although national development plans occasionally make reference to national gender equality action plans, the linkages tend to be weak.

These weaknesses have become particularly evident in the new aid environment, as national development plans are increasingly defining the priorities for government expenditure allocation, including official development assistance to direct budget support or sector-wide approaches (SWAps).

Resources in Arabic

Resources in Spanish

Resources in French