Title: Brazil

Author: UNIFEM 

Date: 2001-2005

This report highlights the progress made in Brazil on gender responsive budget analysis at national and local levels. Over the last several years, efforts to raise gender awareness and promote gender equality have resulted in progress in policy formulation and legislation, including recent affirmative action measures. However, there are continued gender inequities -- disparity in income, health status, educational levels and overall opportunities -- are ingrained in many public policies and maintained by failing to implement policies that could address these biases.

More recently, various civil society organizations (NGO’s, trade unions, social movements, research centres and others) gathered to launch the Brazilian Budget Forum in order to exert social control over public expenditure, raise public awareness on budgetary processes and increase transparency and accountability.

Implementing Partners:
Centro Feminista de Estudos e Assessoria (CFEMEA) (Feminist Studies and Advocacy Centre); Instituto Brasileiro de Administração Municipal, IBAM (Brazilian Institute for Municipal Administration); Ministério do Desenvolvimento Agrário, INCRA/MDA (Ministry of Agrarian Development)

Collaborating institutions:
Secretaria de Políticas Públicas para as Mulheres, SPM (Women’s Machinery); Secretaria Especial de Politicas Públicas de Igualdade Racial, SEPPIR (Special Secretariat for Policies for Racial Equality); Comissão mista de Orçamento, Congresso Nacional (Budget Commission, National Congress); Bancada Feminina no Congresso Nacional (Women´s Group, National Congress); Fórum Brasil de Orçamento (Brazilian Budget Forum); Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Brasília (Institute for Social sciences, University of Brasília); Department for International Development, UK (DFID/Brazil)

Starting Date: December 2001
End Date of Report: February 2005

Background:

Over the last several years, efforts to raise gender awareness and promote gender equality have resulted in progress in policy formulation and legislation, including recent affirmative action measures. However, sustained gender mainstreaming within public policies and equity in public expenditures has proven difficult to achieve. At the same time, continued gender inequities -- disparity in income, health status, educational levels and overall opportunities -- are ingrained in many public policies and maintained by failing to implement policies that could address these biases. It is also worth noting that Brazil has been one of the leading countries to introduce efforts for participatory budgets at the municipal level as in the case of the Porto Alegre initiative. More recently, various civil society organizations (NGO’s, trade unions, social movements, research centres and others) gathered to launch the Brazilian Budget Forum in order to exert social control over public expenditure, raise public awareness on budgetary processes and increase transparency and accountability.

Justification:

In this context, the budget initiative in Brazil recognises the importance of working both with government and civil society to strengthen accountability and build on the increasing willingness of government and civil society to work together.

Expected outcomes:

• Tools to analyze federal public expenditure from a gender and gender/race perspective in Brazil produced and disseminated
• Capacity building of governmental and non governmental agencies around gender responsive budgeting
• Stakeholders from civil society organizations and research centres sensitized towards promoting gender equality and integrating gender sensitive budgeting into their work
• The capacity of the Ministry of Agrarian Development to include a gender and a gender/race focus into its work increased and institutionalized
• Raised awareness of members of the National Congress to the gender dimension of federal budgets and how to use gender budgeting in budget formulation and implementation processes
• Knowledge building and exchange around GRB experiences

What has been realized:

The Brazilian Budget Forum took up gender equality as a major concern in its work on budgets, social control and accountability
Partnerships were established to link work on gender sensitive budgeting to participatory budget exercises in Brazil
Ministry of Planning staff were sensitized and trained on inserting a gender perspective into their work (through participating in gender budget and gender and macroeconomic events) and are currently working closely with the Women’s Machinery on gender mainstreaming in planning and budget design
Series of budget analysis booklets were used to train women’s organizations and motivate civil society organization to engage in budget analysis from a gender perspective
A larger pool of women’s organizations from various States of Brazil are able and willing to engage in gender budget initiatives and key economic research centers are committed to include gender dimension into their work on budgets
DIFD support to scale-up activities

Tools to analyze federal public expenditure from a gender and gender/race perspective in Brazil produced and disseminated

Through UNIFEM support, CFEMEA, a well-respected NGO from Brasilia carried out a review of legislative policies and corresponding budget allocations of the annual budget law for the years 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. The results were compiled in a series on the gender dimension of budgets to serve as input for advocacy and training of government and civil society actors, and published in the NGO’s Journal which is distributed to all decision makers at different political levels, local and national. In this process, a methodology for gender budget analysis of federal expenditure of selected programmes was designed based on consultations with national experts at the Methodology Planning Workshop that took place in 2002. The analysis of the health sector budget also led to a series of discussions with the Ministry of Health. In this process, transparency and accountability were increased as the Ministry committed to make available additional budget information to refine existing tools. UNIFEM also facilitated discussions between the national women’s machinery and the Brazilian Institute for Statistics (IBGE) in order to mainstream gender dimensions into data collection and further refine existing information.

Instituto Brasileiro de Administração Municipal (IBAM) agreed in 2002 to carry out research entitled “Public expenditure and the citizenship of women and men: a comparison between intentions and actions in selected municipalities”. IBAM conducted a review of municipal budgets literature (municipal competencies, expenditure, income) and a review of existing literature on gender sensitive budgeting considering its applicability in the Brazilian context. A technical meeting gathered researchers from IBAM, project consultants and representatives from municipalities to discuss and refine identified tools and methodologies for analysis and to strengthen partnerships with local political authorities collaborating to the project implementation.

Exploratory studies were used to design and test the methodology at the local level in the municipality of Londrina (Parana) and of Vitória (Espirito Santo). Preliminary studies were conducted and reports drafted on: “Gender, Race and Budgets” and “Public finances: how to understand budgets”. IBAM presented a paper on “Budget Grammar according to gender and race dimensions” at the VIII International Congress on State Reform and Public Administration in Latin America, held in Panama City in October 2003.

Capacity building of governmental and non governmental agencies around gender responsive budgeting

UNIFEM, in partnership with the Institute of Social Sciences, organized a one-week training course on Gender, Macroeconomics and Public Policies, at the University of Brasilia in August 2004. The course was directed primarily at national economists, senior officials from key government ministries, members of research and data collection institutes and civil society organizations working related areas. The course drew upon international and national experts in fiscal policies, taxation, monetary policies, labor markets, international trade and structural adjustment policies and provided critical thinking and concrete tools to assess existing paradigms and policies from a gender perspective, highlighting the costs and shortcomings of existing gender biases in macroeconomic policies. Presentations by partners of work and research conducted on gender and public budgets at local and national levels were made at the seminar. In the follow up to this course, researchers created the Brazilian Group of Feminist Economists and submitted a research proposal on gender analysis of national fiscal and expenditure systems to the National Institute for Scientific Research (CNPQ). On the government side, staff from the Ministry of Planning were sensitized and trained on integrating a gender perspective into their work through participating in various training workshops and are currently working closely with the Women’s Machinery on gender mainstreaming in planning and budget design.

Furthermore, a series of advocacy activities in relation to application of gender responsive budgeting and bringing a gender perspective to economic policies was organized by UNIFEM throughout the life time of the project. UNIFEM organized a seminar with the World Bank on Gender and Macroeconomics, directed at the international community and key actors from the Brazilian government. Another seminar on Gender and Macroeconomics organized at the National School for Public Administration (ENAP) for senior public servants was sponsored by UNIFEM.

In late 2004, UNIFEM supported the organization of a two-month virtual course in Portuguese on Gender and Macroeconomics, organized by FLACSO.

Stakeholders from civil society organizations and research centres sensitized towards promoting gender equality and integrating gender sensitive budgeting into their work

UNIFEM facilitated partnerships between NGO’s, research centres and local women’s organizations to ensure follow up of the project at the local level with CFEMEA taking the lead in building their technical expertise in this area.. Collaboration was established with Afro-Brazilian Women’s organizations, such as Cunhã, Transas do Corpo, IMENA and Fase/PA.

A strategic partnership in Brazil was the link with participatory budgets groups in Porto Alegre. UNIFEM also supported a dialogue on gender sensitive budgeting with the Brazilian Budget Forum. Diane Elson addressed the forum regarding the benefits of mainstreaming a gender perspective into budget analysis and planning.

UNIFEM sponsored partners from Brazil and Uruguay to participate in the Gender Budget roundtable organized at ECLAC in Chile in 2002. In February 2004, The International Budget Project, in collaboration with the NGO CIDADE, organized budget training in Porto Alegre (Brazil). UNIFEM and programme partners from IBAM, CFEMEA, the Ministry of Agrarian Development and the Women’s Secretariat participated in the training. Besides the learning and experience sharing, this event was the opportunity to disseminate gender sensitive budgeting work to other participants and build up alliance with actors involved in participatory budgets at the local level to mainstream gender. CFEMEA and CIDADE initiated collaboration on women’s participation and gender dimensions of participatory budgeting exercises in Brazil.

CFEMEA also participated in various events on gender and public budgets and policies to disseminate its work on gender sensitive budgets, learn from other experiences and build up alliances both nationally and regionally. CFEMEA participated in the regional Gender Sensitive Budgets´ seminar in Chile (September 2002). Strategic alliances were set up with the National Institute for Socio-economic Research and with the Institute for Applied Economic Research to conduct joint research and exchange experiences and methodologies. CFEMEA established contacts with gender budget experts in Latin America, notably FUNDAR in Mexico, to support further steps of its project and joint activities.

Improved capacity of the Ministry of Agrarian Development to include a gender and a gender/race focus into its work

An agreement with the Ministry of Agrarian Development was concluded in 2002 to carry out an appraisal of its affirmative action policy and the internal institutional responses within the Ministry. The exercise aimed at mainstreaming gender into the programmes and policies of the Ministry including affirmative action policies on rural women workers access to credit, social benefits and rights. Suggestions included restructuring the Programme into a Nucleus for Affirmative Action, directly linked to the Ministry’s Cabinet, in order to make gender and race crosscutting issues in every working area of the Ministry. In June 2002, a 5-day national capacity building workshop was organized in Anápolis (GO) bringing together programme managers of the Ministry from throughout the country with the objective of sensitizing and better informing public servants on the implementation and consolidation of the Affirmative Action Programme, as well as on gender, racial and ethnic issues in general. Since August 2002, seminars on affirmative actions were held in various States to ensure collaboration and capacity building of MDA’s civil servants at decentralized levels. Government officials were trained to implement policies at decentralized levels.

Some of the concrete outcomes of these efforts resulted in carrying out a disaggregated study by sex and race on current staff composition to give visibility to the percentage of women and Afro descendents in leadership positions and the introduction of a quota system for the employment of women and Afro descendents.

Support provided under the present project was reviewed in line with the policy changes that followed government elections in early 2003. The main change in the program was a strengthened focus on gender and race issues. Adjustments were made to the project and follow up plans include actions directed at empowering women in Quilombos, a former runaway slave communities. Partnerships were also set up with the Special Secretariat for Policies for Racial Equality.

Raised awareness of members of the National Congress to the gender dimension of federal budgets

Since the end of April 2002, UNIFEM has facilitated a number of activities targeting the National Congress in Brazil. CFMEA has been advocating gender responsible budgets to women representatives in the Brazilian Congress, especially to Deputy Laura Carneiro and representatives from the Women’s Group and the Budget Commission. It has also presented several amendments to the Bill on Budgetary Policies for 2003 and 2004 some of which were adopted by Congress.

In June 2004, UNIFEM organized an international seminar on gender sensitive budgeting with the Women’s Caucus in Congress, the Budget Commission, the Women’s Machinery and CFEMEA. The seminar took place in the Budget Commission of the National Congress and drew upon Mexican and Chilean experiences of institutionalization of a gender dimension into policy and budgets. The seminar reinforced the commitment of the Women’s Caucus in Congress and of the Women’s Machinery to mainstream gender into policy and budget design and monitoring processes. A major milestone was set when the President of the Budget Commission suggested the creation of a sub-commission to monitor public expenditure from a gender perspective.

Focusing on the National Congress to provide greater visibility and legitimacy to the issue has been worthwhile. The partnership established between the Congress and with a well-respected feminist NGO from Brasilia/CFEMEA represented a milestone of dialogue between women’s organizations and legislators. This partnership also called for very careful strategizing in order to involve key political actors within the congress such as the President from the budget commission, the Coordinator from the women’s caucus in Congress and the President of the Chamber of Deputies. A jointly organized seminar for the congress was the first time that the Budget Commission promoted a debate on gender equality and also the first time that the commission opened up to debate with civil society and international organizations.

The President of the Budget Commission suggested the “creation of a sub-commission on budget and expenditure monitoring through a gender lens”. This is a remarkable first step, a public commitment to be followed up by political and social actors advocating towards a more gender-aware accountability system.

Knowledge building and exchange around GRB experiences

An informal Latin American network on Gender Budget incentives was set up during the Gender Budget seminar in Brasilia and various members are currently collaborating on joint activities and projects. These articulations reinforced the credibility and political leverage of organizations working on gender sensitive budget in Brazil. Furthermore, exchange of experiences and collaborations were reinforced between Brazil and African countries, at the Ministerial and civil society levels, to mainstream gender into budget and macroeconomic policies and research. Specific collaboration took place in 2003 where two Brazilian trainers participated in a seminar on gender budgets in Cabo Verde (2003) to train local economists and budget specialist on gender equality. Materials and documents have been disseminated to the participants to be shared within Portuguese speaking countries of Africa. These exchanges of experiences with Portuguese speaking countries in Africa are in line with the Brazilian government’s policy to strengthen relations with Africa and are also intended to support the work of the Ministry for Racial Equality. Similarly, African partners were invited to participate in the Gender and Macroeconomics course organized by UNIFEM, in partnership with the University of Brasilia, in August 2004.

UNIFEM supported and organized a series of publications and events to share experiences and lessons learned amongst stakeholders at the regional level and sensitize national government and civil society actors. UNIFEM’s institutional Brochure on Gender Budgets in Latin America has been reviewed, translated into Portuguese and its content adapted to Brazilian reality. The publication has been disseminated to decision-makers at national and local levels and to civil society organizations as a tool for advocacy. Additionally, UNIFEM supported translations into Portuguese of various training and analysis materials on gender budgets as well as production and dissemination of national analysis and documents. As such, tools, best practices and lessons learned were shared amongst primary and secondary stakeholders (government, civil society organizations and international development agencies). A publication in Portuguese of the course on Gender and Macroeconomics is currently underway (finalized in March 2005);

A regional seminar on Gender sensitive budgeting in Latin America was organized by UNIFEM in June 2004, gathering experts and actors from governments and civil society organizations from Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay. Experiences and lessons learned were shared and new actors from civil society organizations, key Ministries and research centers in Brazil were sensitized.

Over the past years, sensitization of government officials (especially the Budget Commission) and the leadership of the Women’s Caucus in Congress provided promising prospects for future institutionalization of gender sensitive budgeting exercises at the federal level in Brazil. UNIFEM’s commitment towards continued knowledge building around gender and economic and budget policies will ensure further sustainability.

Success Indicators:

• Tools for gender budget analysis, advocacy and monitoring at the federal level designed, analysis conducted and results conducted and results disseminated
• Advocacy meetings, trainings and events on Gender Budgets organized/ Training and advocacy materials produced and disseminated
• Improved allocation of budget towards gender equity in health sector
• Increase in government-civil society partnerships
• Increased responsiveness of government actors to engage in gender budgets
• Gender/Race review of GB literature and mapping of income/expenditure process at local level
• Number of institutions engaged in budget initiatives increased
• Expanded pool of experts working on gender, budgets and macroeconomics
• Enhanced national statistics and data systems
• Expanded partnerships and exchange of experts on Gender, Budgets and Macroeconomics across the Southern Cone, Latin America and with African countries
• Institutional strengthening and affirmative action policy of the Ministry of Agrarian Development/MDA
• International donors sensitized and including Gender and Race dimensions into their work

Sustainability strategies:

1. Fund raising and donor sensitization:
Funds from the Belgian government have been used to formulate a three-year programme with planned outputs on public policies and programmes with principals of gender equality, including gender budget analysis, institutional strengthening to address gender and race discriminations, advocacy and training at the federal and at the municipal level and consolidation and dissemination of actions and lessons learned. The Programme draws upon the experiences and initiatives implemented under the Belgian Funds and will give continuity to the activities. It directly involves five key stakeholders: CFEMEA, INCRA/MDA, IBAM, the Women´s Machinery and the Secretariat for Racial Equality. This includes supporting the definition, implementation and monitoring of gender public policies; sensitizing and training policy decision-makers and executors; enhancing women’s leadership capacities; and facilitating women’s organization and advocacy strategies through their different means of expression. DFID cooperation will help UNIFEM create the funding base for longer term planning, consolidation and integration of actions of key actors, and permit the advancement of innovations, evaluation and documentation of lessons learned.

2. Sustained investment in national capacities of governmental and civil society organization to mainstream a gender dimension into budgets and planning:
Over the past years, sensitization of government officials (especially the Budget Commission) and the leadership of the Women’s Caucus in Congress provided promising prospects for future institutionalization of gender sensitive budgeting exercises at the federal level in Brazil. UNIFEM’s commitment towards continued knowledge building around gender and economic and budget policies will ensure further sustainability.

Last Updated: 21 March 2005