Why Gender Responsive Budgeting ? Up until today - strategy gender mainstreaming; Focus on including gender aspects in all work an organization or the government is doing Analysis of the results in relation to goals shows that the expected results have not been achieved Recourses (money ) has not been allocated so the goals can be achieved It is therefore more obvious that one in addition to gender mainstreaming has to find other strategies goals has to be linked with necessary resources One has to look look holistic on strategies and policies what implications do they have in other areas One has to more clearly put pressure on commitments to international agreements The governments budget bill is the most important policy document – therfore very important to analyse how mone is spent

Economic theory is based on”market rationale” Assumption 1: the economy is not a gendered structure Economic theory is based on”market rationale” The economy appears gender neutral, when in fact it has very different impacts on women and men Economic policies often regards family as the smallest unit not individuals Assumes that women and men has equal power Today's Economic theory is based on the assumption that individuals and companies are behaving rational and will distribute recourses at the best ”utility maximization” (in economic language) This only works if all actors has equal power!! Which is not true in a most of government politics Example: Health sector , today we agree on that it is more beneficial that all citizens have access to at least basic health care, therefore the government intervene. We do not let the market forces, the one that can afford care get all Another example is education, where we also thinks it it is more beneficial for the society that all citizens get a certain level of education When it comes to achieving equality women and men by economical terms, through various grants and subsidies a problem is often that programs are designed to benefit the family not individuals Women do not have the same bargain power as men in the family and often are less favor Example: today we in Norden think one prerequisite for equality is that men are as involved in care taking of the family as women, to achieve that government gives child care grants for a certain period often to family, but women often has the lowest salary ant therefore are the one that stays home longer meaning that they also get lower pension, sick benefits etc that are related to your salary ”the market will distribute all recourses at the best” That does not work when the unit is a family Family = persons with unequal power

Assumption 2: un-paid work is free private sector Formal paid work public sector NGO sector Formal paid work Formal paid work Formal unpaid work The un-paid care economy is gender segregated It is important and should and interacts with the ”economy” The economy is dependent on it The greater part of care work is done by Women Feminist economists are questioning ”what should be regarded as work and be included in economic system Example: Cut in public spending --------transfer cost to the un paid sector-----------mostly women that absorbs the work Women do less paid work----------------get less income------------------ Loss ! For the women less sick pay, pension, un employment grants For the society , research from Latin America shows that if women's salaries increase with 50% the national income would increase with 5% In the world : Men do 2/3 of paid work Women do 2/3 of unpaid work domestic sector Unpaid care work Re-visioning the economy to include the contribution of care activities

Assumption 3: Economic policy are not gender bias Economic institutions carry and transmit gender biases/stereotypin: The male lifestyle is the role model Women are often discriminated Gender segregated labor market Male lifestyle= example programs are designed with the mail lifestyle as the model which makes women not eligible as benefices Ex 1: in England it was found by doing a gender analysis on the the unemployment/labor market programs ,the largest which are 80% of the public programs, only 16-27% was women. Reason were that design after male lifestyles and women had different patterns. Example 2: South Africa, women were not eligible for unemployment grant because they worked part time or seasonal or in other peoples home which did not qualify for grant, women also had less benefits such as health and pension which was dependent of fulltime work. Discriminated women are often in credit institutions and have harder to get loans or require them to pay higher interest since female entrepreneurs are valued different than male entrepreneurs Who put a value on different work . Traditional male dominated work are higher paid that traditional female work It is important to analysesis how various government programs reduce or increase gender stereotyping or gender roles

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that the value of the invisible work done by women is $11 trillion per year, and that the sum of global output would be almost 50% greater if this work was included in the assessment of the economy.

Performance indicators Cost Quality Quantity Timeliness equity Actual outcome Appropriateness equity Cost equity Policy objectives Budget allocations inputs outputs outcomes Policy objectives economy efficiency effectiveness Criteria for assessment of value for money Cost effectiveness of achieving government objectives

Gender budgeting provides a range of methodologies for analysis of expenditure and revenue streams by gender, enabling policy makers, analysts and governments to understand any differential impacts on men and women of policy decisions. Gender Budgeting does not imply an increased focus on gender specific expenditure or revenue.

Three core goals of gender budget initiatives Make governments accountable for their gender budgetary and policy commitments. Raise awareness and understanding of gender issues and impacts of budgets and policies. Change and refine government budgets And policies to promote gender Equality.

Impact of integrating a gender perspective in the budgetary process

Tools for gender analysis of the National Budget Requires simultaneous actions at three levels: Application of policy tools Use of gender disaggregated data Strengthening dialogue

The Beijing Platform for Action: One of the Strategic Objectives adopted is for governments to: restructure and target the allocation of public expenditures to promote women’s economic opportunities and equal access to productive resources and to address the basic social, educational and health needs of women; facilitate more open and transparent budget processes; review, adopt and maintain macro-economic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women in poverty

GRB is supported by major international organizations: OECD The World Bank UNDP EU Beijing +5 The Nordic Council of Ministers The Commonwealth governments: At their meeting in September 2002, Commonwealth finance ministers, as part of a wider commitment to work towards gender equality in economic policy-making”agreed to make substantial progress on implementing gender-responsive budgets within their respective budget setting processes”

More information can be achieved from the Nordic Council of Ministers Gender Responsive Budgeting Project www.norden.org Project Director: catharina.schmitz@publicmanagement.se