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Title: Gender Responsive Budgeting in Sri Lanka
Author: UNIFEM
Date: 2002-2005
The document details some of the outputs and activities emerging from the national level gender responsive budget initiative in Sri Lanka. Despite the significant contribution of women to the economic growth of the country, little is known of the benefits they have derived from government programmes financed through the budget. In early 1990s, Sri Lanka was one of the pilot countries of the Commonwealth to carry out work on gender budgets. However, except for the Ministry of Finance and a few others involved in the sectors, which were analysed, not many people, especially not many members of civil society, knew about this initiative. In late 2002, the Government of Sri Lanka invited UNIFEM to facilitate the development of a new initiative for gender budgeting. UNIFEM began by convening a high-level consultation of experts in the region. The meeting was held at the Treasury auditorium, and the Secretary of Finance, the Ministry for Women’s Affairs and other senior officials from various line ministries participated.
Implementing partners
Centre for Women's Research (CENWOR), Ministry of Women's Affairs/Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Samurdhi (Poverty Alleviation) Department of Statistics, University of Colombo, International Movement Against All forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR)
Starting date: November 2002
End Date of Report: February 2005
Background and Justification
In 1997, private remittances in Sri Lanka constituted about fifteen percent the country’s import income. Women working abroad contribute seventy-five percent of this amount. At the same time, women on the plantations and working in the free trade zones together contributed fifty-three percent to exports in 1997. Despite the significant contribution of women to the economic growth of the country, little is known of the benefits they have derived from government programmes financed through the budget. In early 1990s, Sri Lanka was one of the pilot countries of the Commonwealth to carry out work on gender budgets. However, except for the Ministry of Finance and a few others involved in the sectors, which were analysed, not many people, especially not many members of civil society, knew about this initiative. Very little follow up was done after the analysis of the budget was completed. In late 2002, the Government of Sri Lanka invited UNIFEM to facilitate the development of a new initiative for gender budgeting. UNIFEM began by convening a high-level consultation of experts in the region. The meeting was held at the Treasury auditorium, and the Secretary of Finance, the Ministry for Women’s Affairs and other senior officials from various line ministries participated. Following was a study tour for Sri Lanka officials to South Africa in November 2002; the third Regional Workshop on Gender Analysis of the Budget, in which senior officials participated, and the First National Workshop on Gender Budgets. Dr Diane Elson was the resource person for the two workshops.
What has been realized:
Throughout the project, three gender budgets analysis exercises were supported by UNIFEM in Sri Lanka. This included the analysis of the 2003/2004 budget in response to a request from the Government of Sri Lanka, as well as an analysis of a national poverty alleviation Programme and an analysis of policies and programs relating to safe migration of Sri Lankan women.
The gender analysis of the national budget for the year 2003/2004 was carried out by an expert from the region and the report was translated into Sinhalese and Tamil. It was shared with the government, civil society and women’s groups and used for advocacy and policy change.
The gender sensitive analysis of the Samurdhi Programme (a large national poverty alleviation scheme) was also completed in 2004. The analysis examined intra and inter-household allocation of resources and service delivery through surveys and focus group discussions. UNIFEM also supported a gender sensitive analysis of the policies, schemes and plans of the Government of Sri Lanka focusing on safe migration for women.
Two workshops were convened in 2004 in Colombo and Jaffna to disseminate the findings of the analysis of these three areas. Representatives of women’s organizations, policy makers and women representatives discussed findings of the analysis and identified gaps in the research findings and requested that the research is revisited to reflect their feedback. The recommendations focused on the following:
- Elected Women Representatives requested the establishment of Women's Bureaus in all District Divisional Zones and the establishment of a strong rural women's network. This network will allow women to influence decision making processes in the districts whereby women's groups can interact with the local councils and women members in such institutions to implement the ideas related to gender budget making and promoting strong women's leadership to emerge from the community level
- Carrying out gender analysis of budgets in all programmes as well as the expected impact on women and introducing a mandatory 10 % to be specifically allotted to women to be identified by all ministries. The participants also demanded that this is considered the basis on which next year’s funding would be made available to them
- It was recommended that the government provide sex-disaggregated statistics when presenting the government budget. For example the Finance Minister should show how much income has come in from women migrant workers, from the free trade zone and the plantation sector where majority of workers are women. It is also important to show where this income is spent in the budget
- Enhancing the capacity of MOWA, International Movement Against all forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), and feminist economists to identify potential victims of illegitimate migration and build capacity to help them
These recommendations were presented to the Minister of Women’s Affairs. The government is engaged in dialogue with Elected Women Representatives on both the poverty program and migration issues and both issues are now receiving more attention in the media. The government’s response was the declaration of a “special window” for women to access development scheme in the Finance Minister’s speech.
Earlier in the project, UNIFEM worked in close collaboration with the Ministry of Women’s affairs to launch the gender budgets work in Sri Lanka. This was reflected in support to an initiative on “Building budgets from Below” in Kandy replicating the experience from Karnataka in India. UNIFEM also supported a number of training workshops on GRB targeting policy makers and women’s organizations in 2003.
Impact and Outcome:
- Strengthened the capacity of government officials and NGOs, and women’s’ groups to identify vulnerable groups. The capacity building workshops have enabled women to participate in political and economic governance and have been an effective medium for raising important issues and taking the debate on equality and equity forward
- Increased number of stakeholders who work on issues of unsafe migration to dialogue with the government on tougher laws against those encouraging and abetting unsafe migration
- Increased capacity of women to lobby for adequate allocations for safe migration
- Enhanced awareness of all stakeholders about the necessity of registration for safe migration
- Increased capacity of women at the local level governance to participate in budget making
- Enhanced participation of women in lobby for allocations in the budget to reflect their concerns
- Visibility of women in not only contributing to the economy but also the capacity to access resources and to demand their fair share of opportunities
Sustainability Strategy:
This is strong donor presence in Sri Lanka and a number of donors are interested in supporting gender responsive budgeting. UNIFEM has forged some partnerships with various agencies such as the Asia Development Bank who has shown interest on collaborating with UNIFEM to build on the work that has already been done.
Linking the work on gender responsive budgeting with the Right to Information campaign has also provided an effective strategy to address challenges related to access to data.
Working with the Finance Commission proved very strategic. They were working on a UNDP initiative on economic indicators in which gender component was completely left out. With UNIFEM’s interaction with them, they have now included the gender dimension.
UNIFEM has built very strategic partnership with civil society organizations such as the International Movement Against all forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR). They work with grassroot women and have influence in the government hence are able to take women’s voices into policy making.
Success Indicators:
- Gender analysis of the budget 2003-04
- Number of women’s organizations that participate in the gender budget training and dissemination workshops in Sri Lanka
- Number of gender budget recommendations incorporated by the Government of Sri Lanka
- Number of workshops on transformative governance and gender budgets
Last Updated: March 2005
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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.
