‘Gender-sensitive budgets’,
‘gender budgets’, and ‘women’s budgets’ refer to a variety of processes and
tools aimed at facilitating an assessment of the gendered impacts of government
budgets. In the evolution of these exercises,
the focus has been on auditing government budgets for their impact on women and
girls. This has meant that, to date, the term ‘women’s budget’ has gained
widest use. Recently, however, these budget exercises have begun using gender
as a category of analysis
so the terminology ‘gender-sensitive budgets’ is increasingly being adopted. It is important to recognise that ’women’s budgets’ or
‘gender-sensitive budgets’ are not separate budgets for women, or for men. They
are attempts to break down, or disaggregate,
the government’s mainstream budget according to its impact on women and men,
and different groups of women and men, with cognizance being given to the
society’s underpinning gender relations. (Sharp, Rhonda: 1999)
Budlender,
Debbie and Rhonda Sharp with Kerri Allen. 1998. How to do a
gender-sensitive budget analysis: Contemporary research and practice.
AusAID and Commonwealth Secretariat. Canberra.
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/gender/index1.htm
Sen, Gita. 1999. A Quick Guide to
Gender Mainstreaming in Finance. Commonwealth Secretariat. http://www.unifem.undp.org/economic_security/macro_gender.html
BRIDGE, 2003, Gender and Budgets, BRIDGE
Cutting Edge Pack, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies
http://www.ids.ac.uk/bridge/reports_gend_CEP.html
Budlender, D. and Hewitt, G. (eds), 2002, Gender
Budgets Make More Cents: country studies and good practice, London:
Commonwealth Secretariat (case studies from the Andean Region, Australia,
Bolivia. Korea, Mexico, Philippines, Rwanda and South Africa.)
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/shared_asp_files/uploadedfiles/{6FB43A6C-DD22-4DA8-A32D-09E7B3B95A7C}_GBMMC_FLYER.pdf
Budlender, D., Elson, D., Hewitt, G. and Mukhopadhyay,
T. (eds), 2002, Gender Budgets Make Cents: understanding gender responsive
budgets, London: Commonwealth Secretariat
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/shared_asp_files/uploadedfiles/{BE440E9C-4B8C-408E-B862-E28610A579F6}_GBMC%201%20Understanding%20GB.pdf
Elson, D., 2000, ‘Accountability for the progress
of women: women demanding action’ in Elson, D., Progress of the World's
Women: UNIFEM Biennial Report, New York: United Nations Development Fund for
Women (UNIFEM)
http://www.unifem.undp.org/progressww/2000
UNIFEM, 2002, Gender Budget Initiatives:
strategies, concepts and experiences, papers from a high level international
conference 'Strengthening Economic and Financial Governance through Gender
Responsive Budgeting', Brussels, 16-18 October 2001. (Cases from Andean Region,
France, India, Philippines, Tanzania, and Uganda.)
Bakker, I.,
and Elson, D., 1998, ‘Towards engendering budgets’ in Canadian Centre for
Policy
Alternatives (eds.), 1998, Alternative Federal Budget Papers 1998,
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Ottawa
This paper
focuses on the need to engender the Canadian federal budget and forms one
element of the alternative federal budget papers that comprise this volume from
the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The authors challenge the
perceived gender neutrality of budgets by offering evidence of the differential
outcomes for women and men. Recent budget developments in Canada are seen as
reinforcing gender inequality rather than counteracting it. This paper aims to
clarify a gender-sensitive budget framework with emphasis on women’s
contribution to the macro-economy. Proposals are made for gender analysis to be
incorporated into the design of policy. These include the recognition of the
interrelation between paid and unpaid labour, and that the sustainability of
the social framework is in question given the over-extension of women’s
resources. The authors recommend the monitoring of the next federal budget for
its impact on time use and unpaid work burdens.
The
Commonwealth Secretariat
(ComSec) http://www.thecommonwealth.org/gender/index1.htm
The
Commonwealth Secretariat through its programme on Gender Management Systems has
produced an extensive and excellent range of documents on gender-responsive
budgets.
The
Gender-Responsive Budget Initiative (GRBI) http://www.gender-budgets.org
The GRBI is
a collaborative effort between the United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM), The Commonwealth Secretariat and Canada's International Development
Research Centre (IDRC), to support government and civil society in analyzing
national and/or local budgets from a gender perspective and applying this
analysis to the formulation of gender-responsive budgets. The GRBI's web page
offers the possibility of a discussion group as well as a range of documents on
GRBs.
The
International Budget Project http://www.internationalbudget.org/
The IBP assists civil society
organizations around the world to improve budget policies and decision-making
processes. Provides an extensive list of resources, initiatives and
organizations under taking the budget democratization processes. It is possible
to use a translation function to view this site in other languages.
GenderStats
http://genderstats.worldbank.org/
GenderStats is an electronic database of gender
statistics and indicators designed with user-friendly, menu-driven features. It
offers statistical and other data in modules on several subjects. The data in
each module is presented in ready-to-use format. Users have the option of
saving the country views in Excel (or another spreadsheet software) to
customize them for their own reports. Data sources for GenderStats include
national statistics, United Nations databases, and World Bank-conducted or
funded surveys.
You can also check the web pages of groups in
individual countries such as IBAM, Brazil; Centro de Analisis e Inventigacion,
(FUNDAR) Mexico; Flora Tristan, Peru; Community Agency for Social Enquiry
(CASE) South Africa; Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP); Forum for
Women in Democracy (FOWODE) Uganda and others.
Toronto
Women’s Call to Action: towomensmanifesto@yahoo.ca