Of the ten countries, Tanzania has the most long-standing GRB work. The work was started in 1997 by the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) in partnership with other NGOs, and TGNP has remained a lead actor ever since. Government work on GRB started a year or two after that of TGNP, and was done in the framework or the newly introduced MTEF. A government pilot was introduced in six ministries in 1999. For the last few years, the call circular that goes to all government agencies has required that they take gender into account. Especially during the pilot years, the government commissioned TGNP to provide support to the ministries in incorporating gender into their budgets. In subsequent years some ministries – Water in particular – have continued to call on TGNP for assistance.
The Tanzanian budget guidelines have made reference to gender since 1999. The guidelines as a whole contain a section that reviews the implementation in the MKUKUTA clusters, which contains an analysis the key achievements and challenges in each of the sectors. Some of these, such as education and health, also contain some gender analysis. The guidelines also review progress in cross-cutting issues, such as gender. The Medium Term Objectives and Focus section outlines Government priorities for the coming budgeting period under each of the clusters. Gender is also addressed to some extent in each of the three MKUKUTA clusters which outline the priority areas for resource allocation. However, the already identified key gender issues under the Clusters do not necessarily relate to the priority areas for allocations for the next period. For instance, although in Cluster 2, education, some of the issues and challenges in the sector were mentioned to be gender specific, gender is not mentioned under the priority actions for the coming period.
The call circular in Tanzania is longer than in some other countries. The document makes multiple references to gender. The medium term objectives and focus section also has a separate section for crosscutting issues, and outlines which priority areas the Government will focus on. For the latest circular these include mainstreaming gender into policies, plans and strategies at all levels, conducting sensitization on gender issues, and capacity building for gender focal points and other stakeholders. However, the guidance given on how to integrate gender into budget submissions is quite general, namely: “Ensure that the allocation of resources addresses the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty [MKUKUTA] as well as cross cutting issues such as HIV and AIDS, gender and environmental conservation. Further, the forms that agencies must use when developing and costing the submissions do not provide any gender-related items.
Some of most successful work of TGNP has concentrated on raising awareness of GRB, the implications of budgetary allocations for women and men, and advocating for changes in budgets. The efforts have resulted in some concrete achievements. In the water sector, the allocation has increased from 3% to 6% of the national budget, at least partly as a result of advocacy campaigns. Households with low incomes now have access, at no cost, to 80 buckets of water. The allocation to the health sector, another area on which advocacy has focused, had also increased to 15% of the national budget. More specifically, a number of specific budget lines for gender activities or GRB training have been introduced. Within the Ministry of Finance, there is a budget line for GRB training. One query in this respect is that GRB training is reported to be mainstreamed into general budget training for government agencies. It is therefore not clear why this separate line is necessary. In addition, both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Water have budget lines for gender activities, primarily spent on training. A TGNP informant observed that the dedicated budget lines are often used for other activities, especially at local level.
TGNP has also expanded the notion of GRB work to a more macro level. In particular, it has engaged with the Ministry of Planning in an effort to ensure a more gender- sensitive social accounting matrix. As part of this work, it undertook a long lobbying effort around conducting a time use survey. This effort included, among others, conducting small-scale research of its own into the impact of the care burden on families with members who are HIV positive and/or AIDS sick. The lobbying resulted in the government including a time use module as part of the Integrated Labour Force Survey of 2006. TGNP provided support through the design, fieldwork and analysis process and is recorded as one of the authors of the main government report on the labour force survey.
TGNP has also engaged in the many processes surrounding planning, budgeting and aid. This engagement includes successful interventions in respect of MKUKUTA, the latest PRSP, which is widely acknowledged to be gender-sensitive in terms of both text and indicators. In terms of the latter, most of the 84 national-level MKUKUTA indicators are disaggregated to geographical, rural/urban, sex, and poverty quintiles. Some of the indicators also mention women specifically. The master plan also gives a list of indicators still under development. Some of these have a gender focus, for instance the '% of cases of domestic violence that are reported that result in conviction'.
TGNP's GRB-related work also includes engagement in a range of structures and processes involving donors and government, including successful advocacy for special gender studies. It was one of the founding members of the Gender Macro Working Group that brings together donors, government and civil society. More recently, TGNP has actively engaged in advocacy for the Accra High Level meeting on aid effectiveness.
To read more on the GRB work in Tanzania click here (page 33-38).