Gender Budgets - UNIFEM + Latin America Project

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UNIFEM / Gender Issues / Women, Poverty & Economics / Gender-Responsive Budgets

What Are Gender Budgets?

The budget is a policy statement. It reflects the social and economic priorities of a government, the monetary embodiment of its political commitment to specific policies and programmes. Gender-responsive budget analysis provides a way to hold governments accountable for its commitments to gender equality and women’s human rights — by linking these commitments to the distribution, use and generation of public resources.

Gender-responsive budget analysis simply refers to the analysis of actual government expenditure and revenue on women and girls as compared to men and boys. Gender budgets are not separate budgets for women and they don't aim to solely increase spending on women-specific programmes.

Although national budgets may appear to be gender-neutral policy instruments, government expenditures and revenue collection have different impacts on women and men. Gender budget analysis helps governments decide how policies need to be adjusted, and where resources need to be reallocated.

It also provides a way to hold governments accountable for its commitments to gender equality and women's human rights, such as Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), by linking these commitments to the distribution, use and generation of public resources. Gender-responsive budget analysis promotes equality, transparency, efficiency and accountability.

Gender responsive budget initiatives can be carried out at national, provincial and municipal levels and may cover the overall budget or selected parts. They can be done within government, by the Ministry of Finance in conjunction with the Ministry of Women's Affairs or other spending ministries, or outside government, by NGOs and/or independent researchers. Initiatives with support within and outside of government, operating in dialogue with each other, have proven especially effective.

Applying gender analysis to the budget is not simply a technical exercise. It requires thinking about government finances in a new way, looking beyond the household as a single unit of analysis to examine the situation of each of its members, male and female. It requires a focus on the unpaid care economy, in which much of women's time is spent. And it requires gender-disaggregated statistics.

Note: The complete brochure can be downloaded as a PDF file (412 KB).

UNIFEM, UNV Gender Budgeting Project Advances in Latin America

Date: 20 April 2006

In late 2005 UNIFEM and UNV, with support from UNDP, launched a joint programme entitled "Engendering Budgets: Making visible women's voluntary contributions to national development in Latin America". Operations began recently in five countries — Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru — and an induction seminar was held on 17 to 19 April in Brasilia with participation of more than 30 people, including staff and volunteers from UNDP, UNIFEM and UNV as well as representatives of local governments and non governmental organizations from the municipalities where the programme is underway.

The seminar was formally opened by Mr. Lucien Munoz, UNDP Resident Representative a.i. in Brazil, Ms. Ana Falu, UNIFEM Regional Programme Director for Brazil and the Southern Cone, and Mr. Robert Leigh, Senior Policy Specialist at UNV Headquarters. Mr. Munoz highlighted the importance of this example of collaboration in the context of UN Reform. He described the initiative as a courageous effort on the part of two UN agencies to connect strategies and integrate actions around gender in several countries in the region to assist in efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The seminar provided an opportunity for many of the principle stakeholders involved in the initiative to make presentations and take part in panel discussions on the themes of participatory budgets, gender and volunteerism, and to consider action plans in the participating countries. Views on key concepts were debated and information on experiences shared. The seminar is an important step forward in ensuring that the distinctive contributions of UNIFEM and UNV are realized in reaching the goal of promoting women's capacities and abilities to be involved in political and economic processes.

For more information, please contact:

Donna Keher
Chief, Partnerships, Communications & Resources Mobilization
UN Volunteers – UNV Headquarters
Telephone: +49 228-815-2119
E-mail: Donna.Keher@unvolunteers.org

Reprinted from the UNV website.