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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.| Morocco |
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Title: Morocco Author: UNIFEM Date: 2003-2005 The following report describes the progress of Morocco in gender budgeting at the national level. The elimination of rural/urban and gender disparities constitutes one of the strategic objectives of the Moroccan Governmen’s policy, as reflected in the 2000-2004 National Development Plan. In this context, a number of poverty alleviation programmes have been put in place, targeting urban and peri urban poverty, rural electrification, access to drinking water supply and sanitation and the promotion of girls’ schooling. The Ministry in charge of Women’s Conditions, Family and Child Protection and the Integration of the Disabled, has put in place, with the support of UNIFEM, UNDP and UNFPA. These include advocacy programmes geared towards decision-makers at the national and local levels, a national strategy to combat gender-based violence, capacity building partnership initiatives between governmental and non governmental stakeholders. In order to achieve the far-reaching goals of the national development plan, structural reforms in the economic, social and political arenas have been undertaken, including a Good Governance Pact. The consolidation of budgetary allocations is one of the major innovations of this reform process, enabling transparency and accountability.
Implementing partners
The implementing partner is the Ministry of Finance and Privatization, which is responsible for and participates in the design of financial, monetary and credit policies, external finances and external investment, as well as the design, implementation and evaluation of economic, sector and social policies.
The co-operating agency is the Office of the Secretary of State in charge of Family, Solidarity and Social Action, which acts as the national overseer of child, women, the elderly, the poor, and the disabled welfare. The Secretary of State is responsible for planning, at governmental level, social sector policies. It also encourages the development of solidarity in Morocco's society and the strengthens civil society organizations by building partnerships to implement development projects in the social sector.
Starting date: January 2003
End Date of Report: February 2005
Background
The elimination of rural/urban and gender disparities constitutes one of the strategic objectives of the Moroccan Governmen’s policy, as reflected in the 2000-2004 National Development Plan. In this context, a number of poverty alleviation programmes have been put in place, targeting urban and peri urban poverty, rural electrification, access to drinking water supply and sanitation and the promotion of girls’ schooling.
In order to reduce gender disparities in Morocco, the Ministry in charge of Women’s Conditions, Family and Child Protection and the Integration of the Disabled has put in place, with the support of UNIFEM, UNDP and UNFPA, initiatives for mainstreaming gender concerns in development planning and programming. These include advocacy programmes geared towards decision-makers at the national and local levels, a national strategy to combat gender-based violence, capacity building programmes for decision-makers and planners and partnership building initiatives between governmental and non governmental stakeholders. Gender mainstreaming has been further promoted through the nomination of gender focal points in the various ministerial departments mandated to promote the integration of gender concerns in sectoral programmes. Other governmental programmes in the area of gender mainstreaming include the work being carried out by the Ministry of Planning with support from UNIFEM and UNDP for the development of a national strategy for the collection, analysis, dissemination and utilisation of gender statistics and indicators.
In order to achieve the far-reaching goals of the national development plan, structural reforms in the economic, social and political arenas have been undertaken, including a Good Governance Pact, which seeks to introduce ethical standards in public life and improve the quality and management of public services. The consolidation of budgetary allocations is one of the major innovations of this reform process. This consolidation promotes the accountability of all stakeholders, at both the central and local levels, and a transparent programming and execution process, thereby, constituting an appropriate launching pad for the realisation of good governance.
Justification
Despite the above efforts, the attainment of gender equality and poverty alleviation goals sought by the structural reforms continues to suffer from a number of bottlenecks, including the fact that the national budget is not prepared through a gender lens. In this context, it is difficult to carry out a thorough analysis of the impact of development programmes on the ultimate beneficiaries, namely women and men and girls and boys. The decision-making process, therefore, is not endowed with a complete feedback mechanism to measure the impact of the planning and budgetary allocations.
Gender analysis of budgets is presently perceived by the Moroccan Government as a means to attain public management goals of the Moroccan structural reform process given that it implies the analysis and the evaluation of the impact, on both men and women, of governmental budgets. This existing political will in Morocco to undertake the gender analysis of budgets is based on both, equity considerations, given that present governmental policy seeks to eliminate gender disparities in both rural and urban areas, and efficiency concerns, as gender inequality impacts negatively on the overall performance of national economies. It also illustrates the new governmental policy geared towards the introduction of a results-based management style in public sector work.
UNIFEM’s intervention aims to support this on-going reform process in Morocco through the strengthening of national capacities to mainstream gender concerns in the elaboration of the national budget and the evaluation of the impact of budgetary allocations and expenditures. The proposed training and advocacy activities will enable the evaluation of the performance and the impact of development programmes on both men and women. They will furnish the Moroccan public authorities with the methodological tools for the preparation of both gender sensitive national budgets and the next National Development Plan (to start in 2004) taking into account the results-based and people-centred vision of the current reforms. Consequently, this proposal is also a contribution to the effective mainstreaming of gender concerns in effort to adapt Morocco’s economic, social, institutional and legal structures to the present international environment characterised by the liberalisation of markets.
The focus of the initiative will be building national capability for mainstreaming gender concerns in sectoral budgets at the national level. The partnerships forged for the implementation of this focus include both governmental and civil society groupings. At the governmental level, the objective of the project is to build technical capacity for gender mainstreaming concerns in the implementation and evaluation of budgetary allocations. The participating governmental departments include the Ministries of Finance and Privatisation, Planning, Education and Youth, Higher Education, Health, Agriculture, Public Works and Local Communes. At the civil society level, the objective is to sensitise parliamentarians and NGO to gender-sensitive budgets.
Expected Outcomes
The expected outcomes include the strengthening of national capacities and dialogue to identify the key elements for the effective engendering of the budgetary process as part and parcel of the current national budget reform process. This reform includes the establishment of performance budgeting through the consolidation of budgetary allocations, contracting and partnership-building.
What has been realized
The Morocco gender budget initiative started in March 2003 with the establishment of a Steering Committee in charge of piloting the project. This Committee is composed of representatives from the Ministry of Finance and Privatization, the Secretariat of State in charge of the Family, Children and the Disabled, the High Commissary for Planning and UNIFEM.
For the implementation of the first project activity – the participatory conception of a gender budgeting training manual adapted to the Moroccan context, an international consultant, specialized in gender economics was recruited to facilitate the gender budget training and accompany the preparation of the gender budgeting manual.
The process started with consultations with all stakeholders in line ministries in order to compile their needs and finalize the agenda of the first 3 day seminar organized in the context of the project. The objective of this seminar was to sensitize some 40 budget and planning officials from 9 line ministries to gender budgeting concepts and tool, to test their application to the Moroccan context, to share experiences and lessons learned from other countries in gender budgeting and to identify constraints, opportunities and entry points.
On the basis of the work carried out during this first seminar, the main parameters of the gender budgeting manual were identified for the preparation of the first draft of the manual. This first draft was tested during a 5-day seminar during which the requisite revisions were identified on the basis of the needs of the participating budget and planning officials. A preliminary plan of action for the engendering of the on-going budgetary reform process based on performance budgeting was also prepared. This plan of action identified the following elements:
Impact and Outcome
Through the training seminars, capacities in gender budgeting methodology and tools were strengthened amongst 40 senior staff (budget and planning officials) of nine line ministries, half of which are from the Directorate of the Budget. At the present time, and especially following the July 2004 retreat for the rewriting of the manual, the Directorate of the Budget staff presently possess gender analysis skills.
The gender budget initiative in Morocco has received high level governmental support. The workshops were inaugurated by the Minister of Finance and the Secretary of State in Charge of the Family, Children and the Disabled. In his opening speech, the Minister of Finance placed this gender responsive budget initiative at the center of the on-going budgetary reform as an appropriate tool for the achievement of the key elements of this reform which include the globalization of credits, contracting and partnerships. He also highlighted the need for the institution of a new budgetary culture based on the evaluation of results and impact.
Researchers and women’s NGO participated in the second workshop for the validation of the gender responsive budgeting manual, creating and strengthening linkages with the university and the NGO sector.
Moreover, the implementation of the gender responsive budget in Morocco attracted the interest of other donors and national partners. In this context, the GTZ is providing support to the Secretariat of State for the Family, Children and the Disabled in a project for the “integration of the gender dimension in development policies” including a gender responsive budget axis to be developed on the basis of the work initiated by the Ministry of Finance with UNIFEM support. As a result of the encouraging results of this work, Morocco was selected by UNIFEM and the European Union as one of the pilot countries for the implementation of Global initiative for local level gender responsive budgets. The latter has been launched in Morocco in partnership with a women’s NGO, five local communes and UNICEF.
Success Indicators
Sustainability strategy
Along with the main activities planned in the context of the project, other activities were realized which have enabled the increase and strengthening of national GRB expertise and linkages with the NGO sector. At least 3 members of the project’s steering committee have benefited from additional training on gender and macroeconomics and gender responsive budgets. Steering Committee members have been requested to act as resource persons and facilitators in NGO training sessions on GRB.
Given the gender responsive budgeting is a medium and long term process, its success is contingent on the establishment of a global and integrated framework of institutional measures and actions. For this purpose, gender responsive budgeting has been retained by the Ministry of Finance as a flagship action of its strategic programmes. This measure is illustrative of the type of anchoring that the Ministry of Finance is giving to gender responsive budgeting as part and parcel of the performance budgeting process that is being put in place, thereby indicating that performance budgeting may constitute an entry point for gender responsive budgets. In this context, it is worth noting that 5 ministerial departments are already engaged in this budgetary reform process integrating gender analysis in the institutionalization of the reform through the development of gender sensitive indicators (Health, Planning, Finance, Fisheries and Agriculture). Starting in 2005, the approach will be adopted by ten other ministries, including Employment, Education and Justice. Consideration is also being given to promoting this anchoring of the Ministry budget statement as an annex to the Finance Law. Sustainability of the approach is also contingent upon the strengthening of the linkages and coordination between policies, programmes and the budget and inter-ministerial coordination.
Conclusion and Lessons Learned
The main lesson learned from this project is that the institutionalization of GRB is a long-term process, requiring a lot of capacity building, advocacy and policy dialogue. The Morocco experience, where the initiative has been anchored in on-going economic reforms being carried out by the national authorities, has shown that while this anchoring is one of the success indicators of the UNIFEM supported initiative portending for its sustainability, it also indicates that the timeline for the implementation of UNIFEM support in this area would have to be longer in order to be in line with these more longer term reform processes, i.e. UNIFEM work in GRB is highly dependent on the rhythm of these reforms which are not controlled by UNIFEM. GRB work also requires much capacity building given that gender economics expertise is not readily available especially in francophone and arabophone countries. Therefore much attention has to be given to developing national expertise in the area through both formal training and learning by doing processes. Moreover, much advocacy and policy dialogue is required because GRB is new and its institutional anchoring (Finance sector) is a new partner for UNIFEM and the women’s movement. Last but not least, given the predominance of men in the finance sector and in decision-making posts, GRB initiatives provide the opportunity to work with men on gender issues. Nevertheless, this situation also points to the need to develop women’s budget literacy and to promote women to decision-making posts.
As Morocco has been selected as one of the pilot countries for phase II of the project, the discussions launched with the Ministry of Finance on the orientations of this phase indicate that this phase could serve to pursue and strengthen the work initiated during the first phase. Given that during the first phase of the project the Ministry anchored the GRB work in the overall modernization process of budgetary management through the establishment of performance budgeting, GRB work during the second phase could take place in the context and as part and parcel of the various actions envisaged by the Ministry for the strengthening of the budgetary reform process, including:
Last Updated: April 2005
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