Gender Responsive Budgeting - UNIFEM and UNCDF launch a Joint Programme on Gender Equitable Local Development in Africa

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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

UNIFEM and UNCDF launch a Joint Programme on Gender Equitable Local Development in Africa

Date: 2 October 2008

United Nations, New York — The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) signed today the Gender Equitable Local Development (GELD) programme document, which forges a partnership between UNCDF, UNIFEM and UNDP, to support the improvement of women’s access to resources and services at the local level through gender-responsive planning, programming and budgeting. The programme will be rolled out in local governments in Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.

With an estimated budget of US$8 million for the period 2008–2011, the GELD programme will build the capacity of local governments to mainstream a gender perspective in planning and budgeting processes and facilitate participation of women and community organizations in those processes. The programme will be jointly implemented by UNCDF and UNIFEM while ensuring coordination with the wider UN Country Teams.

UNCDF Deputy Executive Secretary, Ms. Henriette Keijzers, said the collaboration between UNCDF, UNIFEM and UNDP brings together their complementary areas of expertise to achieve gender-equitable local development. “UNCDF, UNIFEM and UNDP have consolidated strengths and experience in supporting performance-based gender-responsive planning and budgeting for local development, which can be drawn from various countries all over the world,” she said. “These complementary perspectives are being brought together to generate empirical experience on gender-equitable local development that could be replicated and up-scaled.”

Inés Alberdi, Executive Director of UNIFEM, noted the strategic significance of this programme within the current global economic challenges: “This programme aims to achieve concrete improvement in women’s local realities. It not only seeks to ensure local governments’ accountability to secure women’s equitable access to public services and productive assets, but also acknowledges women’s agency in shaping decision making around local plans and budgets.”

The signature of the GELD programme document confirmed the commitment of UNCDF, UNIFEM and UNDP to work in the spirit of the “One UN” principles, as well as the importance that the three organizations attach to the provision of models that establish linkages between planning intentions and policy outcomes in relation to gender equality.

For more information, please contact:

Ms. Chiara Pace, Business Development and Communication Officer, UNCDF, chiara.pace[at]uncdf.org, +1 212 906-6569.
Ms. Nisreen Alami, Programme Manager, Economic, Security and Rights, UNIFEM, nisreen.alami[at]unifem.org, +1 212 906-6491.