E-Kantipur

“There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women”

— Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General

Women bear a disproportionate burden of the world’s poverty (around 70 per cent of the world’s poor are women) because of the systematic discrimination they face in education, healthcare, employment and control of properties among other areas. Poverty implications are widespread for women, leaving many without even basic rights such as access to clean drinking water, sanitation, medical care and decent employment. Being poor can also mean they have little protection from violence and have no role in decision making.

Against this backdrop, the concept of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) comes forth. Gender-responsive budget analysis, along with legislation, and other practical policy measures can address gender bias and discrimination. GRB is considered as a step not only towards accountability to women’s rights, but also towards greater public transparency. It can shift economic policies leading to achievements across societies.

GRB was implemented in Australia for the first time in 1984 as a gender mainstreaming strategy. The UN 4th World Conference on Women and the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995 also endorsed this concept. After that, interest on gender responsive budget started to accelerate in other countries as well. Currently, more than 62 countries—including Nepal, Sri Lanka and India—are initiating to implement gender responsive budget. GRB is not about creating separate budgets for women, or solely increasing spending on women’s programmes. According to the Pundits of GRB, it rather seems to ensure that the collection and allocation of public resources is carried out in ways that are effective and contribute to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment.

In support of a global vision that all countries commit to undertaking a gender responsive budget initiative by 2015, the government of Nepal has taken the ownership on GRB.  Establishing the Gender Responsive Budgeting Committee (GRBC) under the Finance Ministry, it began work on gender responsive budgeting in 2005.  However, it was formally introduced in the fiscal year 2007/2008. The main objective of GRB is to provide adequate resources for gender equality goals. UN Women has been assisting Ministry of Finance to track expenditure on gender from the beginning.

The government has allocated GRB in three sections: directly benefiting women, indirectly benefiting women and gender neutral budgeting. This kind of budget classification was introduced in principle for all ministries, but with focus on 13 in particular, including Women, Children and Social Welfare, Education, Health, Local Development and Agriculture. As for the current GRB guidelines, each programme proposed has to be scored as per the indicators

developed by GRBC, and have been allocated 20 potential marks each. Those indicators include participation, capacity building, benefit sharing, increased access to employment and income earning opportunities

and reduction in women’s quality improvement in time use. Programmes scoring 50 or more are classified as directly benefiting women, those scoring 20 to 50 as indirectly benefiting and those estimated scoring less than 20 as neutral.

In the very first year (Financial Year [FY] 2064/65) of the GRB implementation, the allocation of directly gender responsive budget was 1.30%. Since then, the percentage of the budget directly supporting women has been increased to 13.94 percent in FY 2065/66, 17.30 percent in FY 2066/67 and 17.94 percent in FY 2067/68 (for details see the table). Though the proportion of GRB for the programmes directly and indirectly supporting women is increased, a huge chunk is still allocated under the gender neutral section.

In order to make each ministry responsible in the preparation of gender responsive budget, every ministry has formed GRB unit. However, this doesn’t seem like an effective allocation of the budget. As per the guidelines, all ministries, departments, projects and programme units at all levels have to fill in forms classifying their demands on preprogrammes and associated expenditure items into three categories, before sending them to the Ministry of Finance and the National Planning Commission.

Those programmes and projects—with more than 50 million rupees of investment—should also submit a gender audit report. However, the gender auditing in practice is yet to be seen, as the GRBC has still not prepared the gender auditing directive/guideline. 

Some ministries are also yet to be persuaded by GRB. Gender Focal Points/units are not equipped with adequate resources, or are not positioned high enough in the bureaucracy. They need capacity building, and to be reinforced by resources and appropriate positioning. It’s not only about increasing the size of budget that directly and indirectly benefits to women, but also about achievement of expected outcomes. It has certainly empowered women in terms of sensitisation and rights, yet lots of effort still needs to be made for effective implementation, and to achieve the targeted outcome. So far the budget is being spent in a scattered manner. It would be more effective if the GRB could have been allocated a separate budget, coordinating all sectors.

A Numbers of challenges are founded in the implementation of GRB. The research paper “Effective Use of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) Tools and Strategies in the Context of the Aid Effectiveness Agenda: Nepal” found that the system has not yet been operationalised fully and effectively, due to both conceptual and practical problems in implementation. Recommendations of this report included both conceptual reforms in the system and capacity building of all stakeholders up to grassroots level.

With the lack of proper assessment of GRB based projects and programmes, the outcomes are still intangible. The question of whether the investments made for women under GRB will really bring meaningful changes in the lives of poor and marginalised women is still unanswered.

Though it is doing well in budget planning and allocation process, the weak implementation could not bring a substantive outcome. It is challenging to localise the GRB despite the allocation of resources in planning phase.  There should be a cross-checking mechanism to ensure effective implementation. Identifying the factors that have affected women’s empowerment in terms of social, political, economic and cultural spheres, GRB must in the upcoming fiscal year be allocated to address the problems and the challenges of each respective sector.

Gender Responsive Budget Allocation in National Budget (2064/65 to 2067/68)

Budget Category    FY 2064/65     FY 2065/66    FY 2066/67    FY 2067/68

Directly benefiting women    19.09 billion (11.30%)     32.91 billion (13.94%)    49.46 billion (17.30%)    60.61 billion (17.94%)

Indirectly benefiting women    56.03 billion (33.16%)    83.58 billion (35.41%)    104.16 billion (36.43%)    122.65 billion (36.30%)

Gender Neutral    93.87 billion (55.54%)    119.53 billion (50.64%)    132.32 billion (46.27%)    154.64 billion (45.76%)

Source: Ministry of Finance

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