Background Note on Gender Budgeting

   

Background Note

1.0 Gender Budgeting- A few concepts and formulations

1.1 What is Gender Budgeting?

The term Gender Budgeting has been defined differently in various documents on the subject. A comprehensive definition is as under:

Gender Budgeting is a dissection of the Government budget to establish its gender-differential impacts and to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments.

Thus Gender Budgeting looks at the Government budget from a gender perspective to assess how it addresses the needs of women in the areas like health, education, employment, etc.

Gender Budgeting does not seek to create a separate budget but seeks affirmative action to address specific needs of women.

Gender Responsive Budgeting initiatives provide a way of assessing the impact of Government revenue and expenditure on women.

1.2 Why Gender Budgeting?

Budgets are universally accepted as a powerful tool in achieving development objectives and act as an indicator of commitment to the stated policy of the Government. National budgets reflect how governments mobilize and allocate public resources, and how they aim to meet the social and economic needs of their people. The rationale of gender budgeting arises from recognition of the fact that national budgets impact various sections of the society differently through the pattern of resource allocation and priority accorded to competing sectors. The budgetary policy of the Government has a major role to play in achieving objectives of gender equality and growth through content and direction of Fiscal and Monetary Policies, measures for resource mobilization, affirmative action for under privileged sections etc. Women stand apart as one segment of the population that warrants special attention due to their vulnerability and lack of access to state resources. Thus gender responsive budgets policies can contribute to achieving the objectives of gender equality, human development and economic efficiency. The purpose of gender budgeting exercise is to assess quantum and adequacy of allocation of resources for women and establish the extent to which Gender commitments are translated in to budgetary commitments. This exercise facilitates increase in accountability, transparency and participation of the community. The macro policies of the Government can have a significant impact on gender gaps in various macro indicators related to health, education, income, etc. Gender mainstreaming requires gender responsive policy. When gender equality considerations are incorporated into policy making, the concerns and needs of both women and men become integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all sections of society.

1.3 Evolution of the concept of Gender Budgeting

The perspective on gender budgeting has greatly evolved over the last few years from the initial post facto, statistical exercise that sought to establish quantum of resources allocated for women in the Union and State Budgets. The range of Gender Budget Analysis is now perceived as a mandate to examine, with a gender perspective,

Public Policies- Fiscal and Monetary, Trade Tariffs etc

Budgetary allocations for various sectors and sections of the Economy- For eg. allocation in the social sector for Education, Health etc

Content and direction of various schemes and programmes- reservation of benefits for women in Food for Work

Implementation of various schemes and projects and incidence of benefit- Achievement of targets,

Public expenditure and impact on macro indicators like literacy, participation in work force, MMR etc.

 1.4 Gender Mainstreaming- The new mantra

The conventional approach to Gender budgeting, i.e. isolating public expenditure- direct and indirect – for women, would continue to be a core activity under the broad gender budgeting exercise with future action concentrating on fine tuning methodology and universalizing the tools for application at all levels of public expenditure.

However, a broader perspective is emerging under the concept of Gender Budgeting- Gender Mainstreaming. The gender perspective on Public Expenditure and Policy is no longer restricted to the realm of social sector Departments like Education, Health, Rural Development etc. All areas of public expenditure, Revenue and Policy need to be viewed with a gender perspective.

It is necessary to recognize that women are equal players in the economy whether they participate directly as workers or indirectly as members of the care economy. To that extent, every policy of the Government fiscal, monetary or trade, has a direct impact on the well being of women. Thus it is not adequate to analyze in detail, allocation of resources for a few sectors of the economy which are traditionally considered as women related. The analysis has to cover every rupee of public expenditure. It has to cover the way schemes are conceptualized and how women friendly they are in implementation and targeting of beneficiaries. It has to embrace a gender sensitive analysis of Monetary policies, covering impact of indicators like inflation, interest rates etc and Fiscal policies covering taxation, excise etc. Thus gender budgeting analysis has to go hand in hand with gender mainstreaming. This is a mammoth task in the current scenario when there is a lot of disaggregated data which has to be gender sensitized and analyzed. Micro studies will have to be conducted to study the impact of public and fiscal policy so that they may guide macro policies. Thus a wide gamut of activities need to be undertaken for gender mainstreaming.

 1.5 Gender Commitments enshrined in Policies

The plan documents have over the years reflected the evolving trends in gender matters.

The Seventh Plan introduced the concept of monitoring of 27 beneficiary oriented schemes for women by DWCD. The exercise continues and number of schemes covered is being expanded.

The Eighth Plan (1992-97) highlighted for the first time a gender perspective and the need to ensure a definite flow of funds from the general developmental sectors to women. The Plan document made an express statement that "….the benefits to development from different sectors should not by pass women and special programmes on women should be complement the general development programmes. The later, in turn, should reflect great gender sensitivity".

The Ninth Plan (1997-2002) adopted ‘Women Component Plan’ as one of the major strategies and directed both the Central and State Governments to ensure "not less than 30 per cent of the funds/benefits are earmarked in all the women’s related sectors. Special vigil advocated on the flow of the earmarked funds/benefits through an effective mechanism to ensure that the proposed strategy brings forth a holistic approach towards empowering women.

The National Policy for Empowerment of Women 2001 envisaged introduction of a gender perspective in the budgeting process as a operational strategy.

Tenth Plan reinforces commitment to gender budgeting to establish its gender-differential impact and to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments.

Extracts from Tenth Plan:

"---the Tenth plan will continue the process of dissecting the Government budget to establish its gender –differential impact and to translate gender commitments into budgetary commitments. -----the Tenth Plan will initiate immediate action in tying up these two effective concepts of Women Component Plan 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. "

The Approach Paper to the Eleventh Five Year Plan mentions "Gender Equity requires adequate provisions to be made in policies and schemes across Ministries and Departments. It also entails ‘strict adherence to gender budgeting across the board ‘.

FM in his Budget Speech while presenting the Union Budget 2007-08 said:

"This year’s Gender Budgeting Statement covers 33 Demands for Grants covering 27 Ministries / Departments and 5 Union Territories . The total magnitude of the Gender budget has also gone up to Rs. 31,177.96 crore."

The table below presents the summary of the allocations on women as presented in the Gender Budgeting Statements over the past three years:

- Mainstreaming a gender perspective into the development process;

2.0 Strategic Framework of Gender Budgeting Activities

After a consultation process, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has adopted "Budgeting for Gender Equity" as the Mission Statement for this initiative and has drawn up a Broad Framework of Activities that would constitute action areas for gender mainstreaming.

Mission Statement: Budgeting for Gender Equity

Broad framework of activities

Quantification of allocation of resources for women in the Union, States and Local Administration budgets and expenditure thereof.

Refining and standardizing methodology and development of tools.

Trend Analysis

Analysis of change in pattern, shift in priorities in allocation across clusters
of services etc

Variations in allocation of resources and actual expenditure

Adherence to physical targets

Gender Audit of policies of the Government- monetary, fiscal, trade etc. at the Centre and State levels

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 correcting gender imbalances

Impact assessment of various schemes in the Union and State budgets

Micro studies on incidence of benefits

AnalysiAnalyzing programmes, strategies, interventions and policy initiatives from the perspective of their impact on status of women as reflected in important Macro Indicators like literacy, MMR, participation in work force

Eg- analysis of substance and content of various interventions directed at health of women and correlate the same with indicator like MMR to establish need for corrective action in formulation of scheme/ approach.

Institutionalizing the generation and collection of gender dis-aggregated datas of cost of delivery of services

Developing MIS for feed back from implementing agencies

Inclusion of new parameters in data collection in Census and surveys by
NSO, CSO etc

Consultations and Capacity building

Collation of research and exchange of best practices

Developing methodologies and tools for dissemination

Forums and Partnerships amongst experts and stakeholders.

o Review of decision making processes to establish gender equity in participation- review of extant participation of women in decision making processes and to establish processes and models aimed at gender equity in decision making and greater participation of women. 

o Formulation and reflection of satellite accounts to capture the contribution of women to the economy by way of their activities in areas that go unreported like care economy, unpaid work in rearing domestic animals etc.

3.0 Tools of Gender Budgeting

3.1 Guidelines for Gender Sensitive Review of Public Expenditure and Policy 

These have been framed by the Department of Women and Child Development in the form of checklists I and II. Checklist I is for programmes that are beneficiary oriented and consciously target women. Checklist II covers mainstream sectors.

Checklist I for Gender Specific Expenditure

Conventionally, gender budget analysis, by way of isolation of women related expenditure, has been carried out for Ministries/Departments like Health and Family Welfare, Rural Development, Human Resource Development, Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation, Youth and Sports Affairs, Labour, Social Justice and Empowerment, Tribal Affairs, Drinking Water, Small Scale Industries and Agro and Rural Industries, Science and Technology, Non-Conventional Energy Sources, Textiles and Agriculture.

Suggested steps that may be undertaken by these various Ministries/Departments who are running programmes/schemes of a gender specific nature i.e. where the targeted beneficiaries are primarily women are as follows:

Planning and Budgeting

List of schemes and programmes which are gender specific

Briefly indicating activities undertaken under the programme for women.

Indicating expected output indicators like number of women beneficiaries, increase in employment of women, post project increase in resources/income/skills etc.

Quantifying allocation of resources in annual budget and physical targets thereof.

Assessing adequacy of resource allocation in terms of population of targeted beneficiaries that need the concerned schematic intervention, the trend of past expenditure etc.

Performance Audit

Reviewing actual performance- physical and financial vis a vis the annual targets and identifying constraints in achieving targets (like need for strengthening delivery infrastructure, capacity building etc.)

Carrying out reality check- Evaluation of programme intervention, incidence of benefit, identifying impact indicators like comparative status of women before and after the programme etc

Compiling a trend analysis of expenditure and out put indicators and impact indicators.

 Future Planning and Corrective Action

Addressing constraints identified from step (vi) above.

Establishing requirement of Resources in terms of population of targeted beneficiaries/ magnitude of perceived problems like IMR, MMR, literacy ratio etc.

Reviewing adequacy of resources available – financial and physical like trained manpower etc.

Planning for modification in policies and/or programmes/schemes based on results of review. 

 

Checklist II 

Mainstream sectors like Defence, Power, Telecom, Communications, Transport, Industry, Commerce etc. may consider adopting the following check list to determine the gender impact of their expenditure.

List of all programmes entailing public expenditure with a brief description of activities entailed.

Identifying target group of beneficiaries/users.

Establishing whether users/beneficiaries are being categorized by sex (male/female) at present and if not to what extent would it be feasible.

Identify possibility of undertaking special measures to facilitate access of services for women- either through affirmative action like quotas, priority lists etc. or through expansion of services that are women specific like all women police stations, women’s special buses etc.

Analysing the employment pattern in rendering of these services/programmes from a gender perspective and examining avenues to enhance women’s recruitment.

Focus on special initiatives to promote participation of women either in employment force or as users.

Indicating the extent to which women are engaged in decision making processes at various levels within the sector and in the organizations and initiating action to correct gender biases and imbalances. 

These exercises can be commenced by each Ministry/Department of the Government, to start with, for a few select programmes/schemes which may be selected either in terms of their perceived gender impact, or the selection can be based on considerations of heaviest budget allocation. Based on the result of carrying out the above steps, the gender budgeting exercise may be institutionalized in the manner detailed in checklist I

 A few illustrative examples of gender initiatives in mainstream sectors are given below:-

 Priority in awarding commercial/ domestic power connections for women entrepreneurs, widows, households headed by women, etc.

Priority in allocation of industrial licenses/commercial plots/petrol pumps and gas stations for women, women cooperatives/self help groups etc.

Earmarking funds for women in Export Promotion schemes

Tax incentives for industrial units that reflect high ratio of women days in work force

Incentives for introducing health insurance scheme for women, particularly in unorganized sector

Affirmative action to allocate ration shops, PCO s and cyber café for women

Provision of more buses/reserved compartments for women commuters

Preferential rates in bank loans for women

 3.2 Gender Profile of Public Expenditure

This entails review of all schemes and public expenditure from a gender perspective and isolating the gender component by way of expenditure and physical targets. Trend of the gender component is indicative of extent to which budgeting is gender responsive.

3.3 Beneficiary Needs Assessment

Establishing requirements from the point of view of women and reviewing effectiveness of public expenditure accordingly.

3.4 Impact Analysis

Establishing actual impact of public expenditure and policies from gender perspective, through monitoring, evaluation and field level surveys. This would include tracking flow of intended benefits.

3.5 Gender-Disaggregated Public Expenditure Benefit Incidence Analysis

This entails analysis of the extent to which men and women benefit from expenditure on publicly provided services.

3.6 Gender-disaggregated Revenue Incidence Analyses

This entails analysis of the different effects on women and men produced by the kind of revenues raised by governments. It seeks to understand the gender perspective of direct (income, corporate taxes) and indirect taxes (value added tax) and user fees.

4.0 Gender Budgeting – State level 

In the meeting of the National Development Council held on 27-28 June 2005, the Prime Minister has emphasized upon the need for State Governments to join hands in this area. 

"The issue of gender bias is another area which needs focused attention. In the Union Budget for 2005-06, we have made a beginning in gender budgeting by incorporating a separate statement highlighting gender sensitivities of budgetary allocations under 10 Demands for Grants, to be extended to all Central Ministries. But this task will remain incomplete unless all the States join hands in ensuring development justice to women. This is one of the important instruments to tackle the growing violence against women, which begins even before their birth and continues through their entire life span. It cuts across caste, class community and prevails in all parts, rural and urban. This is the right forum to pledge our wholehearted and unequivocal support for ensuring a violence-free world for our women and girl children."

(quoted from the presentation made by the Prime Minister on 27^th June 2005 in the 51^st meeting of the National Development Council)  

The State Governments collectively reflect a higher amount of women related expenditure than GOI. 

(Source:- Annual Report 2004-05, Department of Women and Child Development, GOI)

Increasing trend in Public Expenditure on Women over the decade 1993-94 to 2002-03- total expenditure on women development has increased from Rs. 1083.57 crores in 1993-94 to Rs. 3719.16 crores in 2002-03 (B.E.).

The share of the Central Government has ranged between 40 to 50% in expenditure on women.

The above position only reinforces the importance of extending Gender Budgeting initiatives to the State Governments. Further, implementation of all important GOI schemes is with State Governments. Thus any exercise in Gender Budgeting is incomplete without State Government initiatives States could consider setting up Gender Budget Cells in key Departments.

Role of GB Cells

Act as a nodal agency for all gender responsive budgeting initiatives.

Pilot action on gender sensitive review of public expenditure and policies (Expenditure/Revenue/Policies/Legislation etc.) as per Checklist I and II

Guide and undertake collection of gender disaggregated data- for target group of beneficiaries covered under expenditure, revenue raising/ policy/ legislation

Guide gender budgeting initiatives within Departments as well as in field units responsible for implementing government programmes.

Conduct gender based impact analysis, beneficiary needs assessment and beneficiary incidence analysis to

o Establish effectiveness of public expenditure

o Identify scope for re-prioritization of public expenditure

o Improve implementation etc.

Collate and promote best practices on participative budgeting for and implementation of schemes

 

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