Title: India 

Author: UNICEF

Date: 2001-2005 

This report outlines the progress of the gender budget initiative in India at the national, regional, sectoral and local levels. UNICEF/UNDP have attempted to build consensus around the issue of a 20:20 compact for voicing a portion of national budgets for social sectors and linking it to ODA.However,  no such agreement could be crafted. More recently, UNICEF’s efforts to bring in Finance Ministers to look at allocations from a children first perspective, focusing on basic entitlements in India, are examples of some on going work in this area. The work accomplished so far, is minimal, and has not been able to impact on macro policy making and fiscal processes. On the other hand, UNIFEM’s work in India sought to influence the planning processes, and interesting initiatives such as a Women's Component Plan in India has been started. To date, the overall approach has focused on mainstreaming a gender approach to development policy formulation, planning (Five Year Plans in particular) and programme implementation. Planning is done through resource allocations processes and through the main fiscal instrument, the annual budget.

Implementing partners

Governmental organizations:
Department of Women Child Development (DWCD),
Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.

NGOs:
National Institute of Public Finance and Policy

The National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) is a respected institution that has credibility and influence both with the Government and civil society. It is based in Delhi, and is affiliated to the Government of India. Some of the members of the Governing Board are from the Ministry of Finance, and from the Reserve Bank of India. They have influence with government officials and are important strategic partners. They were involved in the first initiative on gender budgeting in India, which resulted in the inclusion of a chapter on gender inequalities in the National Economic Survey 2000-01 for the first time and subsequently a chapter on equalities in 2001-2002. 

• Karnataka Women’s Information Center (KWIC)
• Sachetana
• Center for Economic and Social Studies (CESS)
• Madras Institute of Development (MIDS)
• Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST)
• SNDT University
• Center for Women’s Development Studies
• Members of Parliament
• Feminist Economists

Starting date: November 2001
End Date of Report: February 2005

Background

In India, UNICEF/UNDP have attempted to build consensus around the issue of a 20:20 compact for earmarking a portion of national budgets for social sectors and linking it to ODA but no such agreement could be crafted. More recently, UNICEF’s efforts to bring in Finance Ministers to look at allocations from a children first perspective, focusing on basic entitlements in India, are examples of some on going work in this area. The work accomplished so far, however, is minimal, on the fringe of development initiatives, and has not been able to impact on macro policy making and fiscal processes. On the other hand, UNIFEM’s work in India sought to influence the planning processes, and interesting initiatives such as a Women's Component Plan in India has been started. To date, the overall approach has focused on mainstreaming a gender approach to development policy formulation, planning (Five Year Plans in particular) and programme implementation. Planning is done through resource allocations processes and through the main fiscal instrument, the annual budget.

Justification

UNIFEM’s experience following the very successful Ninth Plan project in India is that the demands of structural adjustment and reducing fiscal deficits often results in compromising the goals of the Five Year Plan. While the rhetoric of women's empowerment seems to have permeated different levels of politics, resulting policies are rarely translated into allocation of resources and even to the extent that they are, they fail to redress discrimination against women and often unintentionally exacerbate them. This has led women activists and political economy specialists to increasingly draw attention to the gender aspects of macroeconomics that shape national budgets. Women’s informal labor and unpaid work needs to be recognized and their productivity considered in the development and implementation of such policies, particularly in resource allocation channelled through national budgets.

What has been realized:

UNIFEM GRB Program in India has been successful in obtaining agreement of the Ministry of Finance to work on gender budgeting. While Ministries of Finance have not been a traditional constituency of gender activists or UNIFEM, their engagement and ownership of the gender budget process is a medium to long term target outcome for the project. The start of this engagement was in the inclusion of a chapter on gender equality in the Economic Survey 2001 tabled by the Finance Minister. This marked a first time where the term “gender “was used in the Economic Survey of India. The National Economic Survey for 2002 featured chapters on “Women in the Work Force” and “Development of Women and Children. In 2004, with the arrival of the new government in India, the Department of Women and Children (DWCD), who had been a partner in the gender budgets work in India, approached the Finance Minister with a request to ensure gender responsiveness of ensuing budgets. Consequently, the Minister committed in his budget speech that in 2005 the national budget in India would focus on gender budgets and set up a task force to look at data needs for ensuring gender responsive budgets. This task force identified 18 ministries which will formulate its 2005 budgets according to gender responsive standards.

Activities carried out though this project that are believed to have contributed towards this positive development:

• Four regional workshops have been held in which four countries participated including India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan
• Seven analytical reports on GRB were completed and published in a Follow the Money in South Asia Series. These reports were well received and there has been a wide demand for them from GRB practitioners around the world
• There is increased dialogue between key partners, NGOs, Government representatives, donors, media, civil society and Planning Commission
• Substantial work on gender budgets supported by UNIFEM in Karnataka resulted in the government of India identifying Karnataka for pilot work based on the recommendations of the task force
• At the request of the Joint Secretary of the department of women and children, UNIFEM provided inputs to engender the Employment Act which will cover the entire country
• A Training manual on gender budgets through 8 participatory meetings was finalized and is being used to train grassroots groups and Elected Women Representatives. It is available in English and in Bengali
• Pro poor groups working on budgets as well as NGOs working on governance have included gender budgets as part of their governance programme and UNIFEM is invited regularly to give technical support to them on gender budgets
• Greater academic and media interest generated on gender budgets. The November 2004 issue of the Economic & Political Weekly has as its theme “Gender Budgeting”. Most of the authors are feminist economists who have worked closely with UNIFEM. The authors have acknowledged the role of UNIFEM in supporting the research

• Refined tools for expenditure analysis developed and improved for use
• Research and analytical capacity on gender and budgets developed
• Expanded network of individuals and organizations that have the capacity and are engaged in gender responsive budgets initiatives
• Capacity building of counselors of municipalities and Elected Women Representatives at the Panchayat level have led to an increase in allocations for women by 56 % in Mysore municipality
• Increased participation of Elected Women Representatives who demanded to be made part of the planning process of the Panchayat and be kept informed of funds available under different budget heads. This was because of cuts in the new funds due to it being unutilized. Elected Women Representatives were unaware that they had funds to use
• Increased understanding of governance by grassroots women
• Agreement to consider national level political commitment to the application of a gender analysis to government budgets by government
• Participatory processes introduced to bring women and gender aware actors into budget formulation and monitoring exercises

• National Institutions take up gender budgets as an accountability measure to hold governments accountable (National Commission for Women). Findings taken seriously by the government and used it to inform policy
• The GOI extends gender analysis of the budget across all states in India. Sensitization of the stakeholders on the issue of "Gender Budget"
• Women parliamentarians request for meetings on gender budgets. Meetings with FM
• Government constitutes task force on gender budgets
• Number of requests for training on gender budgets received

• UNIFEM has worked closely with the DWCD which has resulted in rich dividends. UNIFEM has been identified as the key organization in the country for gender budgets was invited to be part of the government’s national consultations for consensus building for the development of a broad framework of gender budgeting initiative in India
• UNIFEM is dialoguing with UNDP and other donors on collaborating on gender budgets. UNIFEM also part of UNDP’s national consultations on gender budgets
• In order to ensure sustainability, the programme is building partnerships that go beyond GRB Program pilot activities and include pro-poor budget groups and others