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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.| Egypt |
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Title: Egypt Author: UNIFEM Date: 2002-2005 The document details the gender budgeting work of the National Council for Women (NCW) and the Public Administration Research and Consultation Centre (PARC) at Cairo University in Egypt. In early 2002, UNIFEM in cooperation with (PARC), enabled the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University to develop two specialized modules on gender responsive budgeting and gender performance auditing. The two modules have been successfully tested and implemented with the senior finance officers of line ministries (35 participants), in coordination with the NCW. This was assessed as an excellent initiative and opportunity to approach the people responsible for budgets. The training was one of the phases of implementation of the gender mainstreaming strategy within the National Plan, which UNIFEM had technically and financially supported to mainstream gender within the economic and social five-year plan 2002-2007. The gender budget initiative is also a continuation of PARC's earlier efforts on gender responsive budgets and budgeting for the poor, which was supported by the Ford Foundation.
Implementing partners
National Council for Women.
Presidential Decree No.90 in February 2000 established the National Council for Women (NCW) as an autonomous entity. NCW has been placed at the highest political level and directly reports to the President. Its mandate sets out its envisioned role in the advancement of Egyptian women. Egypt’s First Lady heads up NCW, which is managed by a Secretary- General and an Executive Committee. In addition, nine technical committees composed of 30 public figures and experts have been established to advice NCW and develop its strategies and programmes. NCW has been allocated an independent budget and is authorized to receive bi-lateral and multi-lateral funding to finance its programmes.
Public Administration Research and Consultation Centre (PARC) at Cairo University.
Through research, consultation and training programmes, PARC contributes in the public policy analysis and evaluation, performance-based management, local governance, environmental management and environmental awareness. PARC uses a gender approach in all its activities to empower women in pursuit of effective governance. The Supreme Council of Universities decree established PARC in 1995. Though located within the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University, they enjoy full financial and administrative autonomy. PARC’s network with other regional research centres facilitates the cooperation on budget.
Budget: UNIFEM Funds
Starting date: August 2002
End Date of Report: February 2005
Background
In early 2002, UNIFEM in cooperation with The Public Administration Research and Consultation Centre (PARC), the Faculty of Economics and Political Science in the Cairo University developed two specialized modules on gender responsive budgeting and gender performance auditing. The two modules have been successfully tested and implemented with the senior finance officers of line ministries (35 participants), in coordination with the NCW. This was assessed as an excellent initiative and opportunity to approach the people responsible for budgets. The training was one of the phases of implementation of the gender mainstreaming strategy within the National Plan, which UNIFEM had technically and financially supported to mainstream gender within the economic and social five-year plan 2002-2007. The gender budget initiative is also a continuation of PARC's earlier efforts on gender responsive budgets and budgeting for the poor, which was supported by the Ford Foundation.
Justification
The following factors influenced the rise of budget work in Egypt:
On the one hand, the Government of Egypt’s faces the challenge of balancing the country’s national budget, as well as maximizing on the use of its limited resources. GOE is currently studying the possibility of shifting towards performance-based budget. On the other hand, civil society in Egypt is calling for measuring the impact of public spending as a tool to ensure quality services.
UNIFEM’s project with the NCW that started 2000, carried out in collaboration with the UN system in Egypt, was completed in June 2002. It subsequently was extended to the end of December 2002 to work on gender performance auditing and gender budgeting analysis of the National Budgets under the National Development Plan 1997-2002. The introduction of a gender budgeting component aims to employ gender mainstreaming as a strategy for achieving a gender responsive distribution of resources within line ministries and concerned authorities.
Expected outcomes
Success Indicators
What has been realized:
In the past reporting period an initial assessment of institutional and economic policy frameworks in Egypt was finalized and published. The assessment covers the five-year development framework and the MTEF, and the decentralization process and local level budgeting. The assessment also includes a gender analysis of two pilot line ministries budgets namely the Ministry of Youth and the Ministry of Local Development and finally an issue level analysis and measuring the impact of expenditure on education from a gender perspective.
Training manuals targeting the Finance officers of line Ministries and NGOs on Performance Based Budget with a gender focus, and Gender Budgeting were developed and tested. The Training manuals were used in training 17 line Ministries in 20 workshops with 292 participants in Partnership with UNFPA Egypt. The training was carried out as part of a wider organizational development and capacity building program which targeted monitoring and evaluation and gender analysis in addition to gender budgeting. The participants included decision makers, planners and finance officers in the line ministries (ministries of Planning, Finance, Information and Communication, Industry, Agriculture, Foreign Trade, Tourism, Culture, Immigration and Labour, Internal Trade, Local Development, Higher Education, Education, Environment, Housing, Public Administration, and Youth.). A core team of trainers was established in each line Ministry. An interesting sign of the success of the workshops was that the increased requests from the participants to UNIFEM for additional information and resources on gender budgeting.
Impact and Outcome:
As a result of the study, Equal Opportunity Units was established inside the Ministries to monitor gender mainstreaming at the ministries. A special Women’s Unit in the Ministry of Youth was established. The Ministry of Youth is committed to allocating forty per cent of its budget to mainstream women in all activities and programmes 2002-2007.
UNIFEM is advocating mainstreaming the concept of gender budgeting with the Women’s Committee in the Supreme Policy Council, within the National Democratic Party (the ruling party). Poverty is the focus of the Council this year, and it requested UNIFEM’s technical assistance to identify gender sensitive polices for the poor.
Additionally, the following advocacy activities were carried out:
The 2002-2007 National Development Plan doubled to LE3.257 billion, compared with the 1997-2002 plan. The NCW documented that the reasons for the change in the plan was due to the introduction of the following 1- Gender issues have been mainstreamed into the fabric of the plan in a comprehensive manner. 2- Planning programs have become largely gender-sensitive. 3- The concept of gender-sensitive budget programs has been implemented. 4- The concept of gender-sensitive, performance- based budgets has been introduced. 5- Some of the methods of monitoring and evaluation have been adapted to gender needs. 6- Modern and atypical criteria have been formulated with a view to raising planning capabilities and improving the gender-sensitivity of sector plans.
Sustainability strategy:
The Gender Budgeting Initiative in Egypt is contributing to the achievement of the Goals of the Egypt's UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), notably the goals in relation to enhanced governance through a more participatory policy dialogue, institutional capacity building and civil society empowerment and the promotion of policy dialogue on Egypt’s economic modernization and progress towards meeting commitments of UN conferences and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)”.
The partnership with the World Bank’s “Center of Excellence Team for the Performance Based Budget” was also an effective step towards coordination with national level budgeting processes.
Conclusion and Lessons Learned:
The work on GRB was an on-the-job training for UNIFEM team of partners as a lot of literature had been read and analyzed regarding Gender Budgeting, Performance Based Budget as well as Monitoring and evaluation. Throughout this exercise, it became apparent that the Performance Based Budgeting as a way towards good governance could be an effective tool for gender mainstreaming so long as equity was involved in the strategic planning as well as in the operation planning, and performance accountability in the reporting that ensures equity in the inputs, outputs and the outcomes of the government programs. Monitoring and Evaluation as a concept gave priority for the capacity building of the National Women Machinery as well as to line Ministries. These tools allowed for the sustainability of gender mainstreaming efforts that might have otherwise dispersed after a period of time.
Last Updated: April 2005
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