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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.| Nigeria |
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Title: Nigeria Author: UNIFEM Date: 2001-2005 This report details the work in progress in Nigeria on gendered budget analysis at the national and local levels. Governance has emerged as a major issue for development in the West African sub-region, especially in Anglophone West Africa where, after decades of military rule and wars, governments are beginning to democratize. In Nigeria, 1999 marked the beginning of a new experiment with democracy after years of disruptive military rule. One of the major tasks faced by the new civilian and democratic government is reforming Nigeria's institutions at the executive, legislative and judicial levels to ensure that corruption and lack of accountability that was characteristic of previous Nigerian regimes are tackled, human rights of people respected, and democracy allowed to flourish.
Women in Nigeria see the current political climate as an opportunity to follow up on the three important reviews concerning gender equality: the 10-year reviews of the Beijing World Conference on Women, the International Conference on Population and Development, and the World Summit on Social Development. This has once again provided an opportunity for Nigerian women to critically appraise their government, not only in terms of creating an enabling environment for women to participate fully in governance, but also for demanding gender equality policies for economic prosperity and social development. This ultimately will contribute to defining a new and just political agenda, incorporating elements of government transparency and accountability in socio-economic policies, expenditure and social impact.
Implementing partners
Centre for Democracy and Development, National Centre for Economic Management and Administration, and Federal Office of Statistics, Parliamentary Committee on Women
Starting Date: 2001
End Date of Report: February 2005
Background
Governance has emerged as a major issue for development in the West African sub-region, especially in Anglophone West Africa where, after decades of military rule and wars, governments are beginning to democratize. In Nigeria, 1999 marked the beginning of a new experiment with democracy after years of disruptive military rule. One of the major tasks faced by the new civilian and democratic government is reforming Nigeria's institutions at the executive, legislative and judicial levels to ensure that corruption and lack of accountability that was characteristic of previous Nigerian regimes are tackled, human rights of people respected, and democracy allowed to flourish.
Women in Nigeria see the current political climate as an opportunity to follow up on the three important reviews concerning gender equality: the 10-year reviews of the Beijing World Conference on Women, the International Conference on Population and Development, and the World Summit on Social Development. The reviews, and the emanating documents, have once again provided an opportunity for Nigerian women to critically appraise their government, not only in terms of creating an enabling environment for women to participate fully in governance, but also for demanding gender equality policies for economic prosperity and social development. This ultimately will contribute to defining a new and just political agenda, incorporating elements of government transparency and accountability in socio-economic policies, expenditure and social impact.
Justification
Despite an apparent consensus on women’s crucial contribution in the economy and their heavier burden as providers of social services in the household sector, most of women's informal work remain unpaid, unrecognized and undervalued. National accounts give priority to the formal sector where women are under-represented, while the current instruments to measure the GNP do not fully capture the resources generated in the informal sector where women are predominant.
Nigeria’s estimated debt profile according to the Nigerian Debt Management Office is currently put at $28.6 billion, with more than 70% owed to official bilateral donors. This has meant a staggering amount allocated for servicing debt, estimated at about US$1.7 billion in 2000 alone (European Union 2002). This places a tremendous squeeze on non-debt spending, particularly difficult in a country emerging from corrupt military rule and yet to consolidate democracy and deliver dividends to people. The debt burden and corruption have continued to reduce government spending and investments on social services that impact heavily on women’s livelihoods. The fallout of this includes deteriorating quality of services, increasingly reduced role of the state as a provider for social services and security, all of which put enormous responsibility on and burdens women within households to provide these services. Care of HIV/AIDS patients by women is a particular example of this phenomenon.
The gender budget initiative in Nigeria was developed in cooperation with the federal and local government through the Federal Ministry of Women's Affairs and Social Development, and the local government councillors at the community level. The initiative aims to build a corps of women and men who are able to analyze budgets from a gender perspective, incorporate gender into the technical aspects of actual budget formulation, and identify policy makers, technocrats and legislators who will establish the framework for government at all levels to institutionalize gender budgeting.
The initiative is positioned within demands at national level for accountability towards implementing the Beijing Platform for Action.
Expected Outcomes
What has been realized
To launch the Gender Budget Initiative in Nigeria, two major studies were undertaken. The first was a selected study/analysis of the budgetary allocation and expenditure pattern of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Enugu state, the Ministry of Health, Akwa Ibom state – both at the Second tier of government (Nigeria operates a federal structure of three tiers – 1 federal government, 1 federal capital territory (Abuja), 36 states and 774 local government areas), and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Another study was commissioned to analyze the entire budgeting process of the Federal, states and local governments tiers of government, to identify critical steps, actors and most importantly, to identify entry points for gender sensitive budgeting advocacy in Nigeria. As a result of the two studies, a Gender Budgeting training manual was developed to train critical planning and budgeting officers in government, in the Legislature and to develop advocates for GRB in the civil society. The gender training manual was pre-tested by senior government officials and civil society in Nigeria.
UNIFEM has published the critical outputs of the studies: ‘Gender Analysis of the National Budget in Nigeria: pilot studies in select sectors’ and ‘The Budget Process in Nigeria’ as well as the ‘Gender Budget Training Manual’. These are all tools for developing capacity to promote and undertake work on gender sensitive budgets by government, Legislature, and civil society.
UNIFEM collaborated with the National Centre for Economic Management and Administration, a centre established by the Federal Government of Nigeria to train officers responsible for economic planning and budgeting, to review its entire curriculum to incorporate principles of gender budgeting using the training manual developed by UNIFEM. GRB has been incorporated into the entire curriculum of the Centre, and UNIFEM is currently supporting a separate one week training programme dedicated to Gender Responsive Budgeting for planning and budgeting officers from government organizations and the Legislature. About 30 people have been trained at the first instance, and an additional 40 officers responsible for HIV/AIDS strategic frameworks in all the states were trained at the Centre.
About 30 civil society organizations have also been trained under support from UNIFEM and in collaboration with the Centre for Democracy and Development – a pan African organization supporting democracy and good governance in Africa with offices in Nigeria, Ghana and the UK. As a result of the training for civil society organizations, a Gender Budget Network was established (hosted initially at the CDD offices in Abuja). The Network is made up of civil society organizations that have been working on budgeting reforms in Nigeria. One of the key outputs of the training was the development of common key messages relating to gender budgeting in Nigeria. The Network is in the process of being registered as a non governmental organization in Nigeria, and its first strategic planning meeting took place in December 2004. Under the GRB, and in collaboration with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Nigeria, administrative and programme support will be provided to the Network for an initial period of one year.
UNIFEM and the Gender Budget Network has been discussing with the House of Representatives Committee on Women on the appropriate place to locate the GRB programme within the Legislature. As a result of UNIFEM’s advocacy, the House Committee on Women will be partnering with UNIFEM, the Gender Budget Network and the Canadian Parliamentary Centre to organize a national workshop for members of the Legislature from all over Nigeria on critical issues concerning gender responsive budgeting in Nigeria. The workshop will sensitize the legislature in Nigeria on what to look for in reviewing and approving budgets on an annual basis, and also provide a platform for institutionalizing the programme within the National Assembly in Nigeria.
Impact and Outcome
There is availability of tools for gender responsive budgeting in Nigeria. The studies conducted on the selected budgets in Nigeria are also the first time such analyses was carried out, focusing on gender, as well as a review of the entire budget process for budget advocates in Nigeria. The resources have been very well received, and helped identify strategic entry points for advocacy with governments at all tiers and arms of government.
The curriculum of the National Centre for Economic Management and Administration (NCEMA) a national centre for training established for training government economic planning and budgeting officers have been reviewed and changed to incorporate how to undertake gender responsive analysis in budgets. NCEMA has also included a one week annual training programme in its curriculum on Gender Responsive Budgeting and marketed to all government institutions and the Legislature.
A Gender Budget Network in Nigeria has been established with support from UNIFEM, and in collaboration with the Centre for Democracy and Development. The Gender Budget Network has increased the profile of gender budgeting in Nigeria and is to lead to a coordinated advocacy and action strategy by civil society, especially women’s organizations on getting political commitment by government in re-prioritizing resources to promote gender equality.
UNIFEM has been able to bring together different organizations working on budgeting to have a common understanding of the issues and tools in undertaking gender budgeting work in Nigeria. In particular the partnership with the National Assembly (the Parliament) is critical in interfacing with an important element of resource allocation, implementation and monitoring in Nigeria.
UNIFEM has used the opportunity of the development of the Nigerian National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS), Nigeria’s PRSP, to introduce gender responsive budgeting as a tool to be integrated into the implementation of the NEEDS. UNIFEM has used results from the GRB programme to have a high level dialogue with the National Planning Commission (agency responsible for development assistance/coordination and national planning in Nigeria), and UNIFEM has been asked to develop a framework for mainstreaming gender to be used to implement the NEEDS and the SEEDS (States Economic Empowerment Development Strategy).
Sustainability strategy
UNIFEM is integrating its gender budgeting programme within its support to the overall economic reforms currently undergoing in Nigeria. The National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS) is the new comprehensive development strategy for the country that was developed in 2003. It is premised on the core principles of wealth creation, employment generation, poverty reduction and value orientation. The NEEDS will be implemented through macroeconomic restructuring, strengthening of the private sector, public sector reform and a social charter which is anchored on inclusiveness and full participation of all. The NEEDS is expected to be replicated in all the states of the Federation as SEEDS. As part of its overall strategy to sustain its gender budgeting initiative in Nigeria, UNIFEM has negotiated with the National Planning Commission to interface comprehensively with the National and States Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS & SEEDS) to ensure that gender is mainstreamed in the process. Specifically UNIFEM, in collaboration with the NEEDS/SEEDS Secretariat of the NPC will:
UNIFEM is partnering with the Nigerian Institute for Economic and Social Research (NISER) to facilitate the process. A major output from the exercise is a comprehensive framework for engendering, including the provision of tools, of the entire macroeconomic reform process in Nigeria. As a result of this strategy, CIDA has indicated an interest to continue to partner with UNIFEM through the provision of additional resources. OXFAM has indicated an interest to partner with UNIFEM, and has proposed to use the Framework developed to organize a major resource mobilization drive for UNIFEM/OXFAM partnership on engendering macroeconomic reforms in Nigeria.
Success Indicators
-Expenditure side of budgets
-Gender analysis of budget formulation process
-Gender analysis at sectoral level
-Linkages between budgets and macro economic policies
-Availability of training materials
Conclusion and Lessons Learned
High level advocacy, strategic partnerships and high quality training, including curriculum development and provision of training tools used by UNIFEM in implementing the GRB programme created a great impact with limited resources and recognition for UNIFEM’s strategic advantage and leadership in gender within macroeconomic reforms. UNIFEM has also been able to, through strategic partnerships with civil society organizations, provide leadership, guidance, defining objectives/tasks, skills and tools to facilitate their effective advocacy on gender budgeting and economic reforms in Nigeria. UNIFEM has equally benefited from local knowledge, contacts and resources that UNIFEM will normally not have access to. This strategy serves to develop local capacity to develop gender sensitive agendas on budget reforms that are peculiar to Nigeria and is one of the strengths of UNIFEM’s methods of work.
Last Updated: March 2005
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