The concept of gender budgeting is a nineties’ trend that has been introduced mostly in Commonwealth countries. Australia was the first country to implement a women’s budget in 1984. Federal, state and territorial governments in Australia examined the impact of budgets on women and girls for 12 years until a change of government in 1996. South Africa’s Women’s Budget Initiative was initiated in 1995 and involves NGOs, parliamentarians, and a wide range of researchers and advisors. Gender budget initiatives in Tanzania(1997) and Uganda(1999) examine the impacts of structural adjustment programs in these countries and specifically focus on education and health. Many of the earlier gender budget initiatives focused primarily on the expenditure side rather than the revenue side of government budgets. Since 1995 there have been gender budget initiatives in more than 60 countries around the world.The first Gender Budget Statement appeared in the Union Budget 2005-06 and included 10 demands for grants. However, in recent budgets the number of demands of grants have been as high as 36. Ten states in India have also introduced gender budgeting but the lack of a standardised nomenclature for the various schemes has made it difficult to replicate or assess them.
A Gender-Responsive Budget is a budget that acknowledges the gender patterns in society and allocates the money to implement policies and programs that will change these patterns in a way that moves towards a more gender equal society. Gender budget initiatives are exercises that aim to move the country in the direction of a gender-responsive budget.
Need of a Gender Budget
The rationale of Gender Budgeting arises from the recognition of the fact that the national budget impacts various sections of the society differently, through the pattern of resource allocation and priority accorded to competing sectors. Gender Budgeting in its simplest connotation is 'Gender Analysis' of the budget aimed at examining the budgetary allocation through a gender lens. The purpose of gender budgeting is to monitor expenditure and public service delivery from a gender perspective, as a means of mainstreaming women's concerns in all activities and improving their access to public resources. This statement has received an impetus with growing awareness of gender sensitivities. Gender Budgeting is an evolving area where, with better understanding and appreciation of the subject, more and more Ministries/Departments are reviewing programmes and schemes to address the quantum of resources that have the budgetary potential to impact and address the development needs of women.
Gender Budget Initiatives are attempts to disaggregate the government’s mainstream budget according to its impacts on women and men. It refers to the process of conceiving, planning, approving, executing, monitoring, analysing and auditing budgets in a gender-sensitive way. The gender budgeting exercise would potentially assist and lead to the following empowering measures: Addressing gap between policy commitment and allocation for women by emphasizing on adequate resource allocation. Putting pressure and focus on gender sensitive programme formulation and implementation. Mainstreaming gender concerns in public expenditure and policy. By being a tool for effective policy implementation where one can check if the allocations are in line with slated gender sensitive policy commitments and are having the desired impact.
Gender budget is helpful in
1. Improving women’s economic equality
2. Improving effectiveness, efficiency, accountability, and transparency of government budgets.
3. Revealing discrepancies between what a governments says it is doing and the actual impact of government policies.
4. Offering a practical way for the governments to implement their obligations under international human rights agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Real time analysis
Though India has been striving towards an inclusive and gender sensitive development since long, the efforts have been slow to yield any real time results. One of the major reasons for this lag is that politically, women in India have not been as much a part of setting the developmental agenda, and thus , remained more of benificieries rather than the deceiding agents for the various programmes and policies directed at their development. To correct this socio-political problem the solution must also come from the socio-political agents.
Overall, It is time that India awakens to the new paradigm of "WOMEN ARE DEVELOPMENT" instead of "WOMEN IN DEVLOPMENT" approach so as to make socio-economic development facilitate women empowerment in the country.