Transcript Document

Workshop
Gender Responsive Budgeting as a Strategy
for Promoting Fundamental Change
Elisabeth Klatzer
Ecumenical Forum of European Christian
Women - Vienna, September 18 – 22, 2013
Some starting points …
• Budgets reflect values, power relations and
political priorities
• Budgets have differentiated impacts on women and
men
• Gender blind budgeting reproduces gender
inequalities and unequal distribution of power
between the genders
2
Importance of Budgets for Gender Equality
Budgets have different impacts on the lives
of women and men.
Public expenditures and revenue can
contribute towards …
• ... increasing existing gender inequalities
• ... reducing existing gender inequalities
3
Different impacts …
I don‘t make a difference,
I treat everybody equally!
4
© Zita Küng
A comprehensive view of the
economy …
• … is important to understand the gender
impacts of budgets
• … is important to develop more gender
responsive budgets
GRB draws attention to both, paid and
unpaid productive activities.
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Civil Society Initiatives on GRB
Many different starting points:
• Focus on priorities for women and gender
equality issues in budgets
• Focus on needs of women (and men)
• To put into question technocratic budget
process / advocate for participation in budget
decisions
• Sensitization on the importance of budget
processes and budgets
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Starting points (ctd)
• Bring in expertise on GRB and in many policy
fields
• Knowledge transfer
• Work with governments and Parliaments
• Watch dog: setting up controll and monitoring
mechanisms
• Call for transparency and accountability
Some examples of civil society GRB work
• South Africa: Women‘s Budget – inspiration for
international GRB work
• United Kingdon: UK Women‘s Budget Group
• Uganda: Pioneers, experts, work at local level:
Village Budget Clubs
• Brazil: Advocacy and lobbying with Parliament
• Canada: broad mobilization campaigns
• Switzerland: Saving at the cost of women?
• Austria: Giving impulses for integrating GRB in
the budget reform
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Elisabeth Klatzer
Gender Budget work in South Africa
• Fall of apartheid regime – major political changes
• Campaign „big ears“ – agenda for women and
poor people‘s needs, used as a lobbying tool
• 1995: Start of Women‘s Budget Initiative (WBI)
• Joint initiative of parliamentary Committee of
Finance and two policy research NGOs
• Original ideas: support for parliamentarians in
their work
• Broad range of people working with the initiative
(not only economists)
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South Africa: Women‘s Budget Initiative
• Outcomes:
• South Africa Women‘s Budget
• Simple material for people with lower education and
less English skills („Money Matters“)
• Briefing materials for parliamentarians
• Training for multipliers, workshop materials
• Inspiration for GBIs around the world
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South Africa: Focus
• Challenging traditional economics
• Bringing in issues of unpaid labour
• Analytical tool: primarily gender-aware policy
appraisal
• Decentralized analysis (many people involved) –
common format
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UK women‘s budget group (WBG)
• UK WBG established in 1989 by a group of
academic feminists and trade union members
• Time of conservative government: comments to
budget each year when budget was tabled
• No government response => working with
opposition parties, preparing briefing papers for
parliamentarians
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UK WBG
• Approach changed with Labour government in
1997: easier access to government
• Work more closely with government departments,
especially regular meetings with Treasury (MoF),
working with the Cabinet Office‘s Women and
Equalities Unit
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Challenging narrow economic perspective
• Important impulses for widening the perspective
• Feminist economic analysis:
• Taking the Care Economy into account
• Importance of contribution of unpaid work for functioning
of „the economy“
• Gender and power relations are crucial
• Difference whether money goes to „women‘s purse“ or
„men‘s wallet“
Activities and strategies
• Direct contact with politicians
• Broadening impact of work through national
network activities
• 73 organisations in WBG
• cooperation with Women‘s National Commission
• International networking
• Yearly budget comments and comments on
important reform projects
• Work on the impacts of budget reductions on
women
• Currently involved in analysis of budget cut programmes
• WBG report on budget proposals (before elections in May 2010)
• Pointing out that women will be harder hit in triple way
• 65% of workers in public service are women => majority of job losses
will be women
• Larger share of women‘s income is made up of benefits and tax
credits (20% of women‘s income, but only 10% of men‘s)
• Women use public services more intensively than men
• due own needs - greater than for men due to - pregnancy, longer life
expectancy, and lower earnings and assets
• but also to assist them in managing care responsibilities – especially
for children, elderly people and for sick and disabled people
WBG – work continues
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• Pointing out that women, much more than men,
contribute to the economy by providing care
services
• Economic value of unpaid carers in UK is £ 87
billion per year – if women did not do this work,
money would have to come from government
budget
• Cutbacks in care services will fall back on women
• This implies constraints for women to participate
in labour market, in voluntary work for
communities and in political life
WBG – work continues (2)
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Uganda: NGOs in the Driving Seat
• Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE)
• „Village Budget Clubs“
• Village people
• Monitor local budgets if they include interests of poor
women and men
• Identify priorities and ask for accountability about
expenditures and provision of services
Brazil – Centro Feminista de Estudos e
Assessoria (CFEMEA)
• CFEMEA: feminist brazilian NOG, created in 1989
• Doing advocacy for women‘s rights, esp. in the
parliament for more than 20 years
• Political articulation of social and women
movements
• It acts in public policies and budget since 1995
• From 2003 on, CFEMEA developed the „women
budget“
(c) All slides about Bresil: CFEMEA 2009
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Approach by CFEMEA, Brazil
• The struggle for public resources is a political
struggle.
• It is necessary to mobilize women.
• It is necessary to sensitize the society.
• Under pressure, the government invests more in
policies for equality!
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Monitoring resource allocation and spending
Resources planned and executed at the program prevention and combat
of violence against women (in 1.000 Brazilian Real)
Budget
Law
Draft
Authorized
by
Legislative
% increase
in
legislative
Paid values
Executed
(paid)
percentage
2004
7.200
10.528
46,22%
5.690
54,05%
2005
8.222
10.135
23.26%
7.894
77,89%
2006
5.675
14.115
148,74%
6.483
45,93%
2007
8.109
23.545
190.36%
12.279
52,15%
2008
28.500
28.833
1,17%
16.909
558,65%
2009
28.844
40.909
41,83%
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Take action with the
Femme
Fiscale
Manitoba, Canada
Gender Budget Project
UN Platform for Action Committee Manitoba (UNPAC)
Workshops in Manitoba
Post Card
Series
Its 10:15 pm, I just
got off work, no
bus, a 45 minute
walk home, no
money for taxi.
I need to pay the
babysitter, its
minus 19 …
Public
Transport
Good quality public
transportation makes
women‘s lives easier
- More involvement in
community/social life
- Better access to grocery
stores, daycares,
schools, education,
work and health centres
- Increases women‘s
safety and security
- Supports the
participation of elderly
women and women with
disabilities in the
community
- Helps preserve the
environment for our
children
Finance Minister meets Femme Fiscal:
129 Propositions for a Gender Budget
Austria:
Watch Group. Gender and public finance
Group women and budgets (seit 2001)

women from reserach, civil society, interest groups

a lot of unpaid work

publications, expertise, lobbying

important impulses for budget reofrm
•
Austria:
Watch Group. Gender and public finance
Currently: Alliance with „Wege aus der Krise“

annual alternative budget presented
Civil Society
Budget for the
Future
2013
Fair distribution
Ecologically
sustainable
Gender justice
Future oriented
Democratic
Switzerland: who bears costs of budget
cuts?
Background:
• Research Study „Savings on Women?“ - Budget cuts at the cost of
women?
• Research included national, cantonal and local level
• Impact of changes in public expenditure
• Public expenditures benefitting women/men
• Categorization: gender neutral; in favour of women/of men (+, ++)
• Direct employment effects in the public sector / indirect employment
effects
• Impact on unpaid labour of women (and men) – public expenditure
development with impact on unpaid work compated to that without
impact
• Follow-up work in Basle (canton and city)
Basel: Impact on Unpaid Work
Reductions of costs in hospitals
(reducing days spent at hospital) are
partly at the expense of private and
ambulant care work which is mostly
performed by women.
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Municipality of Elbasan,
Albania
• GRB as part of participatory
budgeting
• Gender Monitoring of economic aid
policy
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Elbasan, Albania
Participatory budgeting (PB):
• Citizens participate in priority setting of
public expenditure: neighborhoods discuss
and decide about its priorities
• Gender Perspective:
• Men and women experience needs use environment
around them differently
• There are significant gender differences in priorities
• Men over-represented at city level, women at local
level
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Elbasan, Albania
• Increase women’s participation by developing a
gender-sensitive model of the process:
• holding meetings at times and places which will facilitate,
rather than prevent participation of women;
• ensuring that meetings and processes are both men and women
friendly at local and city level;
• carrying out gender monitoring of representation and
participation;
• ensuring a gender balance in the process (in case of
imbalances consider quotas and targets)
• monitoring whether the process is meeting both men’s and
women’s needs
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Elbasan, Albania
• Achievements:
• Increased number of active women in meetings
(from 10%-30% to 30%-50%).
• Increased number of elected women in Central
Commission.
• Increased number of approved projects that take
into consideration women needs.
• Evaluation of funded projects and their impact on
men and women
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Götaland, Sweden
5 Criteria: Bad, Warning, OK, Good , Excellent
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Using GRB as a strategy for change
• GRB has emerged out of feminist practical politics
• Put political pressure from outside government to
encourage changes inside government
• Asking the right questions
• Challenging policy makers
• Organizing public education initiatives
• Monitoring budget allocations and budget spending
• Drafting shadow reports
• Demanding accountability
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