Gender Responsive Budgeting - Three UN Agencies Join Efforts to Tackle Gender Inequality in Local Development

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The following documents were recently added to the website. Please visit regularly for new uploads.

Impact of Gender Budgeting on Women Empowerment

UNIFEM's work in support of gender responsive budgeting

Budget Support: As good as the strategy it finances

Gender and Participatory Budgeting- DFID

Application of the gender policy marker by German Bilateral Development Agencies

Morocco Gender Report 2008

How do DAC statistics measure gender equality focused aid?

Gender Budgeting Guidelines and Analytical Tools at local level in Uganda

Genre et décentralisation au Sénégal

Rapport du Séminaire sur la prise en compte du genre dans le travail parlementaire- Burundi 2008

Gender Budgets: an overview- Canada

WHAT IS GRB?

"Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is about ensuring that government budgets and the policies and programs that underlie them address the needs and interests of individuals that belong to different social groups. Thus, GRB looks at biases that can arise because a person is male or female, but at the same time considers disadvantage suffered as a result of ethnicity, caste, class or poverty status, location and age. GRB is not about separate budgets for women or men nor about budgets divided equally. It is about determining where the needs of men and women are the same, and where they differ. Where the needs are different, allocations should be different."

Debbie Budlender 2006

Gender Responsive Budget Initiatives Brochure

NEW! GRB VIDEOS

MOROCCO

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.

Click here to watch Morocco video

BOLIVIA

In Cochabamba, Bolivia, UNIFEM has made significant strides in teaching local women how to seek local government funding for projects that can benefit them. UNIFEM developed and sponsored local workshops in which women were educated on the city budget: where government money comes from, how it is distributed, and what strategies to use in applying for government funds. The workshops helped the women envision a new potential for what they can do for themselves, and helped them better understand what kinds of demands they can make on their own government.

Click here to watch Bolivia video

INDIA

Incorporating a gender perspective in government budgets can ensure that resources are allocated towards women's priorities to eliminate gender gaps. This can be achieved through women's participation in budget policymaking and gender budget analysis. This video presents show how this is working in practice in a GRB initiative supported by UNIFEM in Mysore, India.

Click here to watch India video

Three UN Agencies Join Efforts to Tackle Gender Inequality in Local Development

NEW YORK – September 26, 2007

Gender Equitable Local Development seeks to improve women’s access to basic services

As part of the worldwide effort to meet the Millennium Development Goals, there is increasing emphasis on the need for local government reforms to be associated with improving service delivery through local governments. What is often left out of the dialogue, however, is a major cross-cutting concern that merits more attention: the gender dimension of local development and in particular women’s effective participation in local government, to help meet their specific needs and address gender inequalities.

To address this gender gap, three United Nations organizations -- the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) -- have launched a joint programme to ensure gender equitable local development and improved access to resources and services for women. The programme is being piloted in five African Least Developed Countries and will concentrate on gender responsive planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

UNCDF Deputy Executive Secretary Henriette Keijzers said the primary emphasis will be on building the capacity of local governments to mainstream gender perspectives into the planning, implementation and monitoring of local development plans, while facilitating the broad-based participation of women and community organizations in those processes. “In many countries the United Nations has been at the forefront in promoting gender responsive budgeting and the building of local government capacities for service delivery,” she said. “Now we want to combine these different strengths into one joint initiative.”

Joanne Sandler, UNIFEM’s Executive Director a.i., added: “This programme hopes to ensure that women’s interests are fully addressed in local level plans, budgets and decision-making processes. Gender budgeting experiences around the world provide useful lessons and tools that can be upscaled through this programme.”

The programme will construct a model that establishes linkages between planning intentions and policy outcomes in relation to achieving gender equality through equitable interventions. Its total programme budget is US$ 6,155,000. To date, commitments to the project include $350,000 from UNCDF; UNIFEM and UNDP. The three organizations are currently engaged in efforts to close the funding gap. Ten bilateral donors attended the launch of the programme and have expressed interest in joining the initiative.