by Kari Grenade, PhD, Caribbean Economist and Macroeconomic Advisor
At the outset, it is important to underscore that gender budgeting does not mean a separate national budget for women and girls.
In broad terms, gender budgeting means designing national budgets with explicit considerations for gender-specific issues and priorities. Gender budgeting involves the intentional inclusion of gender perspectives at all stages of the national budget process with the aim of ensuring that a gender-sensitive approach is considered in the design of both revenue and expenditure policies, giving true meaning to the notion of “people-centred budgeting.”
Gender budgeting is based on the premise that governments’ budgets tend not to be gender neutral, in other words, expenditure and revenue policies (fiscal policies) have differentiated gender impacts. Fiscal policies can unintentionally have negative gender outcomes, such as widening gender disparities and perpetuating gender inequalities. Because national budgets are not inherently gender-neutral or gender-sensitive, conscious and deliberate effort at gender mainstreaming becomes crucially important to limit or avoid unintended negative impact on a segment of the population. By gender mainstreaming, public expenditures get deliberately directed towards gender equality programmes, and more broadly, fiscal policies get reoriented towards achieving gender-specific goals and outcomes.
Based on current data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), over 90 countries globally have adopted some form of gender budgeting. There is no single approach to gender budgeting, different approaches are used across countries. Typically, gender budgeting tools apply to both the revenue and expenditure sides of the budget. For example, in some countries, expenditure policies target secondary and university education, as well as infrastructure and transportation investments, which have helped to increase women’s participation in the paid labour force. In other countries, tax relief for single parents (woman or man) has been adopted. However, in most countries, there is particular (though not exclusive) focus on issues specific to women and girls, for example, equalising females’ access to education, improving maternal and related child health, and addressing women’s lack of economic opportunity.
Of the 90 countries that have adopted some form of gender budgeting, 5 are Caricom members: Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Kudos to those countries that have already started, and those that have not yet started should make it a priority. All Caricom countries should adopt some form of gender budgeting because reducing gender gaps and disparities, which are large and many, is important for sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development of countries in Caricom. Gender gaps exist in the paid labour force, where the participation of women tends to be lower than that of men. Gender gaps also exist in women’s access to health, education, credit, and technology, among other areas.
Gender budgeting is a valuable tool for governments to use to help frontally address gender disparities because it allows public resources to be allocated in a more inclusive manner, and in so doing, promote societies that are more just. In practical terms, mainstreaming gender priorities into fiscal policies would require capacity building of staff in ministries of finance and the wider public service, buy-in and high-level commitment from policymakers, and strong institutional arrangements underpinning the budget process. Crucially also, civil society has an important role to play in advocating for, and driving change towards mainstreaming gender issues and priorities not only in fiscal policies, but also in social, economic, and environmental policies more broadly.
