Women’s Empowerment Through Gender Budgeting - The Indian Context Presentation by Anjali Goyal Director, Department of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India November 2005

Gender Budgeting- a definition “Gender budget initiatives analyse how governments raise and spend public money, with the aim of securing gender equality in decision-making about public resource allocation; and gender equality in the distribution of the impact of government budgets, both in their benefits and in their burdens. The impact of government budgets on the most disadvantaged groups of women is a focus of special attention.”

What is Gender Budgeting ? An exercise to translate stated gender commitments of the Government into budgetary commitments. Strategy for ensuring Gender Sensitive Resource Allocation and a tool for engendering macro economic policy Entails affirmative action for empowering women Covers assessment of gender differential impact of Government Budgets and policies (Revenue and Expenditure). Enables Tracking and Allocating resources for women empowerment Opportunity to determine real value of resources allocated to women

What are gender commitments in the Indian context ? Constitutional Provisions Legal Framework Women Specific Laws Laws affecting Women Policies Public Expenditure Programmes

Women and Legal Framework Women specific Legislations Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 The Maternity Benefit Act 1961 The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 The Commission of Sati (Prevention)Act, 1987 Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005

Women related legislations 41 laws covering various spheres. Economic Factories Act 1948, Minimum Wages Act 1948, Equal Remuneration Act 1976, The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, The Plantation Labour Act, 1951, The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976 Protection Relevant provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973; Special provisions under IPC, The Legal Practitioners (Women) Act, 1923, The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse ) Act, 1994.

Women related legislations Social Family Courts Act, 1984, The Indian Succession Act, 1925, The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (& amended in 2005), The Indian Divorce Act, 1969

National Policy for Empowerment of Women Objective – advancement, development and empowerment, elimination of discrimination Themes and issues – Judicial legal system, economic empowerment, social empowerment (health, education, science and technology, drinking water and sanitation, protection from violence) women and decision making, girl child The Government adopted the National Policy for the empowerment of women on 20 March 2001. The policy prescribes action under various themes and issues and stresses on importance of ear-marking allocations under the women’s component plan and priortise is need for gender budteting.

Institutional Empowering Mechanisms Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women National Commission for Women A Parliament Committee on Empowerment of Women consisting of 30 Members, 20 to be nominated by the Speaker from amongst Members of Lok Sabha and 10 to be nominated by the Chairman, Rajya Sabha from amongst members of Rajya Sabha was constituted in 1997 for considering the reports of the National Commission for Women to examine the measure taken by the Government to secure women’s equality and to report on the working of welfare programmes for women, etc.

The Challenge How do we translate all these commitments into budgetary commitments and administrative action ? How do we engender policies and programmes ?

Evolution of Indian Initiatives

Seventh Plan 1985- Ministry of Human Resource Development set up Department for Women and Child Development constituted in HRD Ministry 27 major women specific schemes identified for monitoring to assess quantum of funds/benefits flowing to women

Eighth Plan The Eighth Plan (1992-97) for the first time highlighted the need to ensure a definite flow of funds from general developmental sectors to women It commented: “ … special programmes on women should complement the general development programmes. The latter in turn should reflect greater gender sensitivity”

Ninth Plan Women’s Component Plan- 30% of funds were sought to be ear-marked in all women related sectors – inter-sectoral review and multi-sector approach Special vigil to be kept on the flow of the earmarked funds/benefits Quantifies performance under Women’s Component Plan in Ninth Plan-Approach Paper Tenth Plan indicates 42.9% of gross budgetary support in 15 women related Ministries/Departments has gone to women The Planning Commission sent instructions to Ministries and States/UT s to draw up a Women’s Component Plan to Identify programmes on women Earmark funds as part of 9th plan /annual plan proposals The operational strategies outlined in the National Policy for Empowerment of Women 2001 also envisage introduction of a gender perspective in the budgeting process. National Policy for Empowerment of Women 2001 Themes and issues – Judicial legal system, economic empowerment, social empowerment (health, education, science and technology, drinking water and sanitation, protection from violence) women and decision making, girl child A Parliament Committee on Empowerment of Women consisting of 30 Members, 20 to be nominated by the Speaker from amongst Members of Lok Sabha and 10 to be nominated by the Chairman, Rajya Sabha from amongst members of Rajya Sabha was constituted in 1997 for considering the reports of the National Commission for Women to examine the measure taken by the Government to secure women’s equality and to report on the working of welfare programmes for women, etc.

Tenth Plan · Reinforces commitment to gender budgeting to establish its gender-differential impact and to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments. Aims at initiating immediate action in tying up the two effective concepts of Women Component Plan (WCP) and Gender Budgeting to play a complementary role to each other, and thus ensure both preventive and post-facto action in enabling women to receive their rightful share from all the women-related general development sectors.

Indian Experience Women’s Component Plan-Earmarking resources for women Implementing Women Specific Schemes Monitoring macro indicators like MMR Literacy rates, work participation Quantum and Trend analysis of resources allocated and spent on women Gender Audit of schemes and programmes- implementation and impact analysis Anjali Goyal 2005 ©opyright

Action by the Department for Women & Child Development Issue of checklists / guidelines for gender audit of public expenditure Adoption of Strategic Framework for Gender Budgeting Special letters sent to Ministry of Finance and Planning Commission to engender the Annual Plan and Budget exercise for 2005-2006 Consultations with select Departments on four priority areas Food and Nutrition Security & Employment guarantee Water and Sanitation Adequate Health facilities Asset base for women Without such a gender sensitive analysis public investment and public expenditure may unwittingly re-inforce gender inequity.

Action by the Department for Women & Child Development Capacity Building- Departments in GOI and State Governments Mainstreaming Gender Concerns- Watchdog approach Interest Subsidy Kerosene Oil Micro Credit Health Insurance Inflation

Instructions issued by Inter-Departmental Committee, GOI All Departments to open Gender Budget Cells by 1.1. 2005 All Departments to reflect benefit-incidence analysis of expenditure in Annual Reports-2005-06 Eighteen Departments to reflect gender component of schemes in Performance Budgets of 2005-06

New Statement on Gender Budgeting Union Budget 2005-06 New Statement on Gender Budgeting Nine Departments Identified for focus

Gender Mainstreaming- our new Mantra for “Women’s Development” Women as a beneficiary segment Need for Gender mainstreaming Fiscal and Monetary Policies, Legislations Need to Change Programme formulations and implementation processes More gender friendly Optimize Participation of Voluntary Sector Gender budgeting – not an end in itself Anjali Goyal 2005 ©opyright

Rationale of Alternative Strategy Empowerment has to be Holistic (Political, Social and Economic) Universal (equal opportunity and level playing field) Participative and Inclusive Anjali Goyal 2005 ©opyright

Framework of Gender Budgeting Quantification of allocation of resources for women Gender Audit of policies of the Government Impact assessment of various schemes in the Union and State budgets Analyzing schematic and policy initiatives and link with impact on status of women related Macro Indicators a)Refining and standardizing methodology and development of tools. Trend Analysis shift in priorities in allocation across clusters of services etc, Variations in allocation of resources and actual expenditure.  Adherence to physical targets b) Research and micro studies to guide macro policies like credit policy, taxes etc Identification of gender impact of policies/interventions viewed as gender neutral Micro studies to identify need for affirmative action in favour of women towards restoring gender imbalances c) Micro studies on incidence of benefits Analysis of cost of delivery of services Investment in agri- but women don’t own land- get remuneration as casual labour- lowest paid. Instead more invt in dairy

Framework of Gender Budgeting Institutionalizing the generation and collection of gender dis-aggregated data Consultations and Capacity building Promote gender equity in participation in decision making a) Developing MIS for feed back from implementing agencies Inclusion of new parameters in data collection in Census and surveys by NSO, CSO etc b)Collation of research and exchange of best practices,Developing Tools for dissemination Forums and Partnerships amongst experts and stakeholder.

Holistic approach to Empowerment Water & San. Health & Nut. Political Participation Education Asset base Skills Marketing Holistic approach to women’s empowerment: Social (education, health, status in family etc) Economic (asset ownership, share in income, skills, appropriate technology etc) Political (participation in decision making) Technology Credit

Action Areas Women availing services of public utilities like road transport, power, water and sanitation, telecommunication etc. Training of women as highly skilled workers- top end skills Research/Technology for women Women in the work force Asset ownership by women Women as Entrepreneurs

Implementation of Laws like Equal remuneration Minimum Wages Factories Act Infrastructure for women like Water and sanitation at workplace Creches Working Women Hostels Transport services Security

Gender Analysis of State Budgets Research Study – Decadal trend

Preliminary Findings Higher percentage share of states in expenditure on women Expenditure on Health is largest component Broad trend reflects increase in expenditure Wide annual fluctuations in many states Some states reflect relatively less expenditure compared with population of women

Path Ahead Pursue Gender Mainstreaming in the Government through coordination with Gender Budget cells Widening scope of National Statistical System Widening scope from public expenditure to Revenues, Fiscal and Monetary Policies Pursue gender budgeting by States with help of planning Commission and MOF Capacity Building- Coordinate with training institutes and experts to standardize methodology and tools

To Conclude “It is more important to create a general awareness’ and understanding of the problems of women’s employment in all the top policy and decision making and executive personnel. There is also the special problem facing women like the preference for male children for social and cultural reasons. This will require awareness, understanding and action. The best way to do so is to educate the children, orient the teachers, examine the text books and teaching-aids and ensure that the next generation grows up with new thinking.” (6th Five Year Plan )

Thank you