Gender-responsive budgets in the commonwealth progress report: 2005-2007
September 2007
Commonwealth Secretariat
At the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting in 2005, Ministers recognised the critical importance of gender-responsive budgets (GRBs) and the need for progress and sustainability on this issue. The Ministers therefore agreed to report on progress biennially at the Finance Ministers Meeting, with the next review in 2007. They also “urged members that have not already done so to establish an institutional mechanism within their countries to monitor progress on implementing GRBs.” A comprehensive report, Gender-responsive Budgeting in the Commonwealth: Progress and Challenges 2005, had been presented at the meeting, and a synthesized paper circulated as part of the background reading.
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The present report is a follow-up and collates responses from the various Commonwealth countries on progress made since 2005. The focus of the report is on what had been done in respect of GRB in and by government, and how GRB had been built into the country’s budgeting system.
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In late 2006, the Gender Section of the Commonwealth Secretariat sent out a letter for the Ministries of Finance of all Commonwealth countries asking them to respond to a questionnaire (Annex 1) which had 17 questions on their activities related to GRB. Reminder letters were sent in February and July 2007 to those countries that had not yet responded.
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By the time this report was compiled mid-year, responses had been received from 24 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Canada, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, Grenada, India, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Namibia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu and Uganda. Of these, Cook Islands indicated that they did not have a gender-responsive initiative so would not respond. Others which did not have a GRB initiative nevertheless responded as best they could to the different questions. The United Kingdom asked for an extension of the deadline, but no response was subsequently received from them.
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The next section of this report steps through the questions detailing the responses of the different countries. In several cases countries responded to questions in ways that did not focus on GRB but instead related to gender activities more generally. This report focuses on responses that show a clear budget link. The report ends with a short concluding section.
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The questionnaire included questions relating to GRB-related activities in civil society. Some countries interpreted the question on civil society as referring to money allocated by government to support civil society groups. Others described civil society organisations active in the country, but did not specify how/whether they were involved in GRB. Bangladesh, Canada, India, Pakistan and Uganda referred to specific civil society GRB initiatives, but provided very little detail. This issue is thus not covered in this report, where the focus is on government activity.
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The questionnaire also asked about initiatives within parliament or the legislature. Here some countries responded by noting that the parliament and its committees examined and debated the budget estimates, but did not mention any specific focus on gender or women. Several countries – Malawi, Namibia and Pakistan – reported that sensitisation or capacity building workshops had been organised for parliamentarians. In South Africa, every year the Joint Monitoring Committee on the Improvement of the Quality of Life and Status of Women in the national parliament makes a formal submission giving its responses both to Budget Vote 1 (which includes the allocation for the Office on the Status of Women) and the budget as a whole. As with civil society initiatives, this area of work is not covered further in this report as it seems respondents may not have had full information. The focus is thus squarely on GRB work within government – and usually within the national government.
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The report attempts to stick closely to how governments themselves reported on their activities. Inevitably, however, some changes were necessary to avoid having an over-long document, and to allow for easier comparison across countries. As noted above, aspects of responses which did not seem to relate directly to GRB were omitted.
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