Gender Responsive Budgeting - Gender Budgets, Anyone?

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

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

Gender Budgets, Anyone?

An innovative way to analyze federal spending recognizes women's needs as well as men's. An article by Martha Burk published by Ms Magazine (Weekly Feminist News). Added to this website April 2008

President Bush has unveiled his budget request for the next fiscal year, and it's hardly surprising: a dramatic increase in defense spending, an even larger deficit and proposed cuts in a wide range of domestic programs such as education, childcare, health research, Medicaid, Medicare and job training. Those programs being cut, not coincidentally, are those that disproportionately impact women.

Bush's budget proposal is consistent with what author Riane Eisler, in her book The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics ( Berrett-Koehler, 2007) , calls a “dominator” economic system. Such a system is characterized by a distribution of resources to those on top, heavy investment in armaments and a lack of investment in meeting human needs. The result is an economic double standard in which programs associated with “femininity” (such as caregiving) are devalued, while “masculine” priorities (such as war) are highly valued.

Read full article

http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2008/GenderBudgetsAnyone.asp