TITLE: High Level International Conference on strengthening Economic and Financial Governance through Gender Responsive Budgeting Brussels October 16-18, 2001

DATE: 2001

List of Participants to Brussels Conference

The following is the communique from the Brussels conference of October 2001 on 'Strengthening economic and financial governance through gender responsive budgeting'
 

 
17 October 2001, Brussels
 
1. As support to strengthening economic and financial governance through gender responsive budgeting, the Government of Belgium hosted a High Level conference in Brussels on 16-17 October 2001 - sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Government of Italy, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the International Development Research Centre-Canada (IDRC).
 
2. The conference brought together ministries of budget, finance, employment, industry, gender, social affairs, transport, development cooperation, and agriculture from governments worldwide, as well as experts and international institutions. The goal is to mobilize political and financial support to strengthen the capacity of governments as well as civil society organizations to carry out these initiatives and to support the global vision of gender responsive budget initiatives in all countries by 2015.1
 
3. Gender responsive budget initiatives are an important tool for strengthening economic and financial governance and for promoting accountability and equality. National budgets reflect how governments mobilize and allocate public resources, and how they aim to meet the social and economic needs of their people. Gender responsive budgeting analyses the impact of government policies on men and boys as compared with women and girls within and across any given socio-economic category. Gender analysis is an important part of accountable and responsive budget procedures. Fiscal, financial and economic policies help reduce poverty and redress inequalities in the distribution of resources.
 
4. Governments world wide made a commitment, in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (1995), to "incorporate a gender perspective into the design, development, adoption and execution of all budgetary processes as appropriate in order to promote equitable, effective and appropriate resource allocation and establish adequate budgetary allocations to support gender equality and development programmes that enhance women’s empowerment."
 
5. Gender responsive budget initiatives can make an important contribution to the growing practice of civic consultation and participation in the preparation of budgets and in the monitoring of their outcomes and impact, at local, regional and national levels. In particular, they can ensure that women and girls are not marginalised from such processes. This strengthens economic and financial governance by promoting transparency.
 
6. Mounting evidence shows that gender inequality leads to major losses in social cohesion, economic efficiency and human development. Budgetary policy can increase, reduce, or leave unchanged the losses to society from gender inequality through changes in expenditure and revenue, primarily through adjustments in fiscal policy. Thus gender responsive budget policies can contribute to achieving the objectives of gender equality, human development and economic efficiency.
 
7. Gender responsive budgeting can enable governments, that are parties to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, to better fulfill their obligations therein. It is a means to reduce discrimination, direct or indirect, against women in policies governing taxation and expenditure. It is also a means to ensure that the requisite resources are taken into account and made available to implement legislation that advances gender equality and the fulfillment of the human rights of women.
 
The conference therefore urges governments, international and intergovernmental organizations, multilateral institutions and non-governmental organizations to:

I.   Encourage the examination of budget processes and objectives to ensure that women’s and men’s needs and priorities are considered equally;
 
II.   Encourage women to participate in this examination, including as elected representatives and members of women's organizations; and involve the research community, development banks and civil society;
 
III.   Encourage the incorporation of gender analysis in the preparation, implementation, audit and evaluation of government budgets at all levels; and show commitment to transparency and accountability by encouraging the application of gender analysis in government budget reports, including by setting out and reporting on the impact of past budgets and the expected impact of the proposed budget on gender equality objectives;
 
IV.   Recognize the use of gender responsive budget initiatives as a tool to enhance the way civil society preferences and needs are incorporated into the budget, to improve transparency and equality, reduce poverty and achieve good economic and financial governance;
 
V.   Encourage and support gender responsive budget initiatives worldwide and call on the Nordic Council of Ministers, the OECD, and UNIFEM in cooperation with the Commonwealth Secretariat and the International Development Research Centre -Canada and other relevant bodies, to continue to provide research, technical or methodological support for these initiatives;
 
VI.   Promote the catalytic and supportive role of international and development cooperation, including through increasing support for gender budget initiatives.

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1 - The support for gender budgeting and good economic governance has been found internationally through the following initiatives:

• The Nordic Council of Ministers decision to apply gender mainstreaming to areas traditionally considered ‘gender neutral’ such as economic and finance policy, both in Member states and in their development co-operation activities (see Nordic Co-operation Programme on Gender Equality 2001-2005);
• The 22nd Annual Meeting of the Senior Budget Officials of the OECD in Paris (2001) noted that new analytical tools which illustrate how the budget impacts different population groups are becoming increasingly common in OECD Member countries;
  The communiqué by the 2000 Commonwealth Ministers Responsible for Women’s Affairs Meeting in New Delhi encourages Governments to integrate, where appropriate, a gender analysis into the national budgetary process … and to consider integrating a gender perspective into macroeconomic policies such as debt management and structural adjustment policies, and international trade policy";
• The United Nations ECOSOC Resolution E/RES/1998/26 requests "the governing bodies of the United Nations funds and programmes to monitor the implementation of gender mainstreaming in their programme of work, including in the budgeting of their organizations";
• The 2001 United Nations – Inter Agency Meeting on Women and Gender Equality and the OECD/DAC Working Party on Gender Equality communiqué from the joint workshop on governance, poverty reduction and gender equality (Vienna) states that "accountability, transparency, participation and legitimacy are core elements" of good governance" and that "gender responsiveness is essential to all of these, and is a measure of good governance". It also underscored the principle of including citizen participation;
• At the Millennium Summit, all members of the United Nations endorsed a set of development goals which include the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The Millennium development goals build on the International Development Targets composed by the OECD in 1996.
• First report on Applied Gender Analysis to Government Budgets/Government of Belgium/May 2002.