Poverty and deprivation at all levels in our society has always bothered me, and the helplessness that I felt intensified every time I finalised a research report. Time and again non-availability of funds to execute many programmes and translate policy commitments into action raised a few questions; every year, year after year our financial ministers have been giving us statements of allocation of funds for various activities, they where did these funds go? How much did they really allocate towards educating our children? How much was assigned for undertaking activities related to health issues? What about the share for farmers?
My search for answers to these questions
educated me to read budget. Till then I was under the impression it is not my
concern but that of an accounts person. I was introduced to reading budget,
believe me, initially it was torture.
The budget that my government shares with
us is unreadable to common citizens. I understood that every government should
in a democracy provide what is known as people’s budget. People’s
budget is the basis for open, accountable and a just practice.
As I started understanding the budget
allocation of governments, I also started to realize that our budget formation
premises assumes that the given budget will automatically be shared with all
the citizens of the land. The realities are otherwise. The non-inclusive
societal values very subtly gets expressed in sharing the resources too. It
became necessary therefore to understand not only the given budget but also to
look at it from different sections’ positions too.
I thought of sharing my learning about the
budget and specifically about gender budget as it is my interest area.
What is Budget?
A budget is
a financial document used to distribute funds based on the projections of
future income and expenses.
Not many people would argue with the
concept of budget transparency. A government takes money from taxpayers, and
should therefore be accountable to them. The non-taxpaying public should also
know as much as possible about the government’s spending plans to ensure its
needs are met. Even governments themselves should push for transparency, as it
allows the voting public to give feedback on its spending priorities and
thereby increasing a government’s chances of staying in office.
In practice, of course, things are not
quite as clear: people with vested interests want to keep certain information
from public scrutiny.
Why do we need to
understand or track the budget?
To make public affairs transparent and public
information made available
To promote efficient and effective public
service delivery
To institutionalize the participation of Civil
Society in the analysis, tracking and advocacy
To make citizens participate in the process of
allocation, tracking of disbursement, and in monitoring the use of public
resources.
What happens when we track the budget?
We understand
Budget formulation ie. We come to know how
public resources are allocated
Budget review components ie, we will be able to
diagnosing the implications of the budget when formed and their likely impact
on our lives
Public expenditure at the local and national
levels ie, seeing where the money is actually going
The performance of programmes at the
decentralized level ie, after money is spent, see how the output/service is
performing
Let us see what gender
budgeting is all about and why ask for gender budget?
India is one of the
countries that signed committing itself to achieve the Millennium Development
Goals. This meant that both at the state and the Union level the
governments promised to recongnise the needs of women and accordingly make
allocations, so that reaching the target of a society that has both men and
women are equally able access the national resources.
What is gender budgeting
then?
It is analysing how
governments raise and spend public money, with the aim of
securing gender equality in decision-making about
public resource allocation;
It is understanding how
gender equality is achieved in the distribution of the impact of
government budgets, both in their benefits and in
their burdens.
Gender budgeting is part of the gender
mainstreaming strategy. Gender budgeting focuses on a gender-based analysis and
an equality-oriented evaluation of the distribution of resources. These
resources are mainly money, time as well as paid and/or unpaid work. Gender
budgeting seeks to achieve a gender-equal distribution of resources.
I understood that it is not enough to
understand gender budgeting merely as a gender-differentiated analysis of the
use of certain public funds. This is only a small, yet necessary part. But this
alone neither qualifies for implementing a gender-equality-related evaluation
of the total budget, nor does it make statements on gender-related interactions
of expenditures with other resources possible.
Benefits of Gender Budgeting
Gender budgeting offers a range of
advantages that partly go beyond an effective contribution to gender equality:
Gender Budgeting creates
greater transparency regarding the criteria that form the basis for budget
related political decisions.
Gender Budgeting
facilitates greater accuracy and sustainability because available funds are
more precisely tailored to the real needs of the different social groups.
Gender Budgeting is a
procedure that makes discriminating implications of financially effective
decisions visible and that enables a gender-equitable restructuring of
resource-related decisions.
Gender Budgeting is an
option to put gender-equality-related goals into practice, including in times
of bigger budgetary margins.
In the context of gender budgeting, a
whole range of questions have been formulated that serve to analyse
resource-effective decisions and check their efficacy regarding gender
equality:
- o What impact does a resource-effective decision / measure have on the living conditions of women and men in their diversity?
- o Who directly or indirectly benefits from state expenditures?
- o What impact do economic measures have on unpaid work and which social groups do this kind of work?
- o Which women and men pay what kind of direct, indirect and invisible taxes (as unpaid work) to the community?
- o What resource-effective decisions / measures consolidate or change existing gender roles?
These questions serve as an initial basis
for developing tools and action steps for the implementation of gender
budgeting.
I have found that gender auditing is a
very important tool that could be used at all levels
What is gender auditing then?
Gender audit can also be
called as Social audit. GA Belongs to the category of quality audits as opposed
to financial audits. Gender Audit considers whether internal practices
and related support systems for gender mainstreaming are effective and
reinforce each other and whether they are being followed. It establishes a
baseline. It Identifies critical gaps, and challenges and recommends ways of
addressing gender gaps. Suggests possible improvements and innovations and
further documents good practices toward achievement of gender equality
Gender auditing is a tool and process based on a participatory methodology
to promote organizational learning at individual, work unit and organizational
levels on how to practically and effectively mainstream gender.
Thus when we speak of Gender budgeting, Gender
auditing should form the basis to plan, propose as well as implement the Gender
Budget. Further, it will be good to have a People’s Budget document which needs
to be circulated among the general public so that more number of people
understand the budget and be budget literate.
To conclude I would say that in our effort
to work towards an equitable society we need to equip ourselves with
information as knowledge provides strength.
- Dr Shanthi VG
Sources:
*I have extensively drawn from note in the
training workshops that I attended organised by International Budget
Partnership and Center for Budget and Governance Accountability New Delhi. This
is a compilation of ideas that I have gathered over a couple of years in my
effort to learn about budgeting in general and Gender Budgeting in specific.
Jhamb. Bhumika & Navanita Sinha.
2010. Millennium Development Goals & Gender Budgeting: Where
does India stand? Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability. New
Delhi
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