Gender responsive budgeting in Pakistan and Tanzania. (By Ronald Mbulawa)

One of the most exciting concepts to emerge from advocates of gender mainstreaming in general and women/girl-child empowerment in particular is the vital need for gender responsive budgeting (GRB) in national and local projects, resource provision and allocation. The causes of the emergence of this concept are no doubt varied, but have included both deliberate economic, political and social struggles by women and the sort of transformation in the global thinking on gender issues and changes in market production. There is no doubt that budgets influence, to a larger extent, provision and allocation of resources especially in developing economies. Broadly speaking, policy formulation and implementation rests in most cases with the manner in which budgets are structured and executed. Therefore any budget that turns a blind eye to the needs for gender configuration at both community and national budgeting levels is largely irrelevant and an act of distributional injustice. This paper seeks to explain the vitality of GRB drawing experiences from Pakistan and Tanzania and how their initiatives have impacted on the advancement of women and girls on one hand and men and boys on the other.

This paper will as a starting point attempt to define what entails gender responsive budgeting (GRB) in general, its strengths and challenges facing this initiative in Africa and Asia as areas of study. The author will proceed to narrow down to the two countries alluded to in the introduction. Perhaps it is important to make it clear that terms like ‘upliftment or empowerment’ have become current watchwords sometimes abused by a large number of highly-powered executives, business tycoons, personality developers and those involved in gender education. The gap that exists between rhetoric and implementation should be analysed in order to determine the benefits accrued so far from GRB in over 60 countries throughout the world. Moreover, the high prevalence of poverty levels and gender inequities in Africa and Asia indeed call for a comprehensive and well thought out process for engendering local and national budgets. Diane Elson (2002) identified that the focus on gender inequality can be structured so as to take account of other forms of inequality, such as class, race and region. The key question might be reformulated, for example, as: does this fiscal measure improve, worsen, or leave unchanged, the position of the most disadvantaged women? Hewitt and Mukhopadhyay (2011) argue that in order to ensure greater consistency between economic goals and such social commitments aforesaid, GRBs are no doubt fundamental. Indeed as Aasha K. Mehta (2007, 222) succinctly puts it:

If budgets are determined at the macro-level on the basis of what the micro-household priorities in the budget allocation, or if we build budget priorities at the macro-level from a gender and poverty sensitive lens, then they must include poverty reduction, opportunities for employment for all able-bodied, eradication of hunger, access to safe drinking water, access to quality and affordable health care, correcting the bias in the female-men ratio and safety nets for the old, who are poor, and for the poor who are disabled or (those who are generally marginalized in society: my own emphasis)    

Gender-responsive budgeting are budget processes that incorporate gender equality perspectives and initiatives into the budgeting procedures and the policies that underpin it in order to promote equality between women and men. There is consensus among gender writers that GRB does not involve creating separate budgets for women and girls, or simply increasing specific budget allocations directed to these groups. Instead, it involves collecting budget revenues and allocating expenditures that address persistent inequalities between women/girls and men/boys (Sharp 2003; Hofbauer 2003; Budlender et al 2002). There is no doubt that the level of political will, social and economic priorities, can be demonstrated and reflected in the government’s national budgets. In general, GRBs have initiatives that seek to raise awareness of the effects that budgets have on women/girls and men, hold governments accountable for their commitments to gender equality. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) contends that GRBs help to bridge persistent and consistent inequalities between women/girls and men/boys and facilitate development by integrating gender issues into macro-economic policies. Most countries that have attempted GRB initiatives have had varying degrees of successes and challenges. The analyses of Pakistan and Tanzania come against a chilling background by Budlender and Hewitt (2002) that at this point in time no country in the world has achieved a completely gender responsive budget. They also note that some countries are further along the road to reaching that goal than others, but none has reached it yet. This lies partly due to the fact that national budgets in most, if not all, countries are gender blind and sometimes mired in entrenched in political setups and distorted and vague state ideologies.

A comparative analysis of the impact of budgets on men and boys and on women and girls is the first step in the process towards GRB. This type of budgetary analysis helps to reveal the extent to which budgets and their underlying policies are reducing, worsening, or perpetuating inequalities between men and women. The Nordic Council of Ministers (2005) contends that gender-responsive budgeting requires knowledge of the budget as a whole, including its processes, the role of institutions, and the policy context in which it is framed. In addition to gender budget analysis, GRB also entails using certain tools such as data and indicators to identify budget priorities, allocating resources accordingly, and tracking the impact of policy and budgets on gender equality. Nonetheless, GRB initiatives are in line with the ILO approach to gender and development and with international gender equality commitments, such as the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Therefore there has been a clarion call for governments to make sure that budgets address the plight of women and girls who in most cases are marginalized. This is so because without money or budgets the government cannot implement any other policy successfully. Thus, for example, government can have a very good policy on reproductive health, gender-based violence (GBV), or HIV/AIDS, but if it does not allocate the necessary money to implement it, the policy is not worth any more than the paper it is written on.

The notion of using GRB initiatives to promote gender equality became widespread in 1995 with the Beijing Platform for Action when the United Nations called on governments to assess how public expenditures benefited women and to adjust budgets to contribute to gender equality (Sharp 2003). The United Nations (UN) made it clear on the issue of equality of access to employment and thus recommended that governments: 

“Analyse, advise on, coordinate and implement policies that integrate the needs and interests of employed, self-employed and entrepreneurial women into sector and inter-ministerial policies, programmes and budgets”. (United Nations 1995 cited by Ruiz 2003: 3)  

Whilst the UN makes its case on the issue of employment, it is equally true that also budgets need to accommodate some of the fundamental issues like poverty and ill-health which squeeze pressure into the already burdened women. Poverty and ill-health affect both men and women; however, the problems get compounded for women due to a number of reasons. Firstly, women’s lack of access to and control over resources and decision making lead their higher incidences of poverty and lower levels of access to health care services for them. CARE (2006) noted that, “While men have higher rates of disease morbidity for many major diseases, including tuberculosis and malaria, a larger percentage of women die due to the fact they are often brought in for diagnosis and treatment at severe stages of illness, when treatment is less effective.”

Secondly, when any member of the family falls ill, women routinely add the task of providing care to their other tasks, thereby adding to their unrecognized work burden, which leads to their higher levels of tiredness and morbidity (Aasha K. Mehta: 2007). Such hard reality which women found themselves in has resulted in gender inequalities which have necessitated calls for gender responsive budgeting in Africa, Asia and in the rest of the world. There is no doubt that gender inequality can constrain the outcomes of macro-economic policy. For example, economic reforms with decreased incentives can reduce women’s output, or restricted access to education or training can hamper women’s ability to develop their human resources (Haddal, et al, 1995; Cagatay, Elson, Grown, 1995; World Bank, 1995; Palmer, 1995). Elson (1995) goes further to explain that gender inequality is inefficient and not only costly to women, but also costly to children and many men. In addition, Elson expounds that gender inequality exacts costs through lower output, reduced development of people’s capacities, less leisure and diminished well-being. Therefore women’s empowerment through GRB remains key to the possibility for all countries to have some combination of increased productivity, improved human resources, less stress and better overall health.

The concept of GRB in Pakistan is a relatively new project which the government took as an initiative aimed at making women economically and politically stronger. Diane Elson (2002) makes it clear that GRB have an impact on macro-economic policy in shaping the women/girls’ living standards and their prospects for economic empowerment. Moreso, GRB initiatives have been taken in various countries with a clear mindset that such budgets can worsen or improve the living standards of different groups of women and contribute to narrowing or widening gender gaps in incomes, health, education, nutrition and other social areas. The government of Pakistan is therefore no exception, realized that there is efficiency gains behind GRB since gender analyses helped improve targeting and resulted in a more optimal use of limited public resources. Pakistan envisioned the principles of GRB from its gender budget statements, which have had a strong influence in its gender budgeting initiatives. Gender Budget Statements (GBS) are a useful tool as they attempt to scrutinize from a gender lens, budget documents that often are difficult to comprehend. However, depending on a host of factors, the formats being used and the level of details being provided differs drastically from one country to another.

There are inherent limitations in the methodologies and formats being used to produce Gender Budget Statements in several countries, there are some advantages as well. Pakistan and Indonesia’s GRB Statements, for instance are more quantitative and less qualitative (Mahbub and Budlender: 2007). However, it is important to emphasize that GBS cannot be singled out as a tool that countries can entirely depend on as an alternative to GRB. The reality and ultimate objective should be to make budgets and policies more gender responsive. It is true that merely interrogating public expenditure or incidence cannot substitute GRB. The Gender Responsive Budgeting in Pakistan Booklet (2008) argues that the process of GRB should intend to result eventually in gender responsive budgets—budgets that are planned, approved, executed, monitored and audited in a gender sensitive way. According to article 80 of the constitution of Pakistan, a budget is “a statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the government for a financial year, referred to as the Annual Budget Statement.” The Pakistan mindset take cognizance of the fact that budgets play an important role in the empowerment of women and girls on one hand and men and boys on the other. A budget mirrors the priorities and values of a government and lays bare how money is allocated to the different sectors of an economy, that is, infrastructure, social services, health and education to cite a few examples. Indeed, no policy can be implemented without financial support and therefore the way the budget is used is imperative in steering a country’s economic, social and political future.

The government of Pakistan laid down clear GRB goals which the government argued will bring economic reforms. Pakistan’s economic reforms are mainly centred on six main areas namely gender equality, gender equity, good governance, economic efficiency, poverty alleviation as well as transparency and accountability. It is argued that equality and equity will bring equal access to opportunities and equal chance of achieving the desired outcome in the country’s budget initiatives. Furthermore, the country assert that good governance is symptomatic of the country‘s commitments to realizing the full potential of women in society.  The concept of good governance is however problematic due to its many-sided definitions. The most comprehensive is that of the World Bank which defines good governance as “epitomized by predictable, open and enlightened policy-making, a bureaucracy imbued with a professional ethos acting in furtherance of the public good, the rule of law, transparent processes, and a strong civil society participating in public affairs.” (Quoted in the GRB in Pakistan Booklet, 2008). The country also believes that GRB is a tool for indentifying the gaps between international commitments and the amount of public spending on gender specific reforms tracking how money is allocated. This is how the government of Pakistan argues that this is how GRB increases transparency and accountability. Evidence available indicate that Pakistan’s GRB was undertaken as a pilot by the government at the federal and provincial levels in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Additionally, the recent introduction of a medium-term budget framework has provided the opportunity to integrate a gender perspective into the new budget system. The GRB pilot was undertaken for three public sectors – education, health and population welfare – using various GRB tools. For example, gender aware benefit analysis was applied to the education and health sectors. First, unit costs of the public services provisions were estimated using budget documents and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Annual Progress Report 2004-05. Next, the unit costs were imputed to users of the public services which were identified based on the Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey 2004-05. Thirdly, aggregated figures of benefit incidence were estimated and categorised by household income levels and provinces. The analysis found a change in the beneficiary groups compared to results from a previous analysis (Mahbub and Budlender, 2007, 4-5.)

Tanzania is one of the African countries which initiated GRB. The concept of GRB in Tanzania began in 1997 as a civil society process, based on the recognition of the deteriorating economic situation in Tanzania, particularly in the areas of health, agriculture and education. This was due to a constraining macro-economic context, including globalisation, structural adjustment, liberalisation and the debt burden. As a result, the organisation began advocating for adoption by the government of a gender budgeting approach that stressed allocation and utilisation of government resources on the basis of gender needs of various social groups. Civil society pointed to the government’s commitments in various regional and international instruments to promote gender equality as a justification for such a process. Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) spearheaded the initiative of GRB initiative and used various strategies to achieve its objectives, including coalition building; building alliances with various actors, including government, Parliament and media; conducting participatory action-oriented research in various sectors; and building an advocacy strategy. Key opportunities were identified, such as willingness of key government actors and on-going reforms of the budget process and expanded role of the local governments. This process led to the adoption of gender budgeting by the Government of Tanzania in a programme coordinated by the Ministry of Finance. The organisation has continued to support the mainstreaming process within the government through building capacities in gender planning and budgeting, developing tools and manuals, and providing backstopping services to government planners and budget officers. This vigorous campaign by the civil society and action of the Tanzanian government was followed a clinic to buttress the holistic importance of introducing, implementing and monitoring GRB tasks.

A Regional Training Workshop on Gender-Sensitive National Planning and Budgeting for National Machineries for the Advancement of Women was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 4 to 7 December 2001. This workshop was organized by the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). The training targeted 5 Anglophone pilot countries, Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, Malawi, and Swaziland as well as Tanzania, as the host country. It is important to point out the reasons why such a workshop was fundamental to Tanzania. The workshop intended to develop and strengthen conceptual understanding and skills of key government officials in gender-sensitive planning and budgeting as well as identifying opportunities and challenges for effective gender-responsive planning and budgeting. This was important as way to make sure that the country was monitoring the advancement of women in line with its national and international commitments. In addition the workshop aimed at developing country-specific immediate action plans for engendering planning and budgeting processes as well as developing a sub-regional strategy for operationalising gender-sensitive national planning with particular reference to the role of national machineries and gender focal points. This underlines how much important GRB is in Africa and how it should be used to redress social, political and economic marginalisations which women/girls continue to face across the continent embedded in poverty and remnants of colonial and post colonial injustices.

The workshop included a field visit to the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme and its Gender Resource Centre in Dar es Salaam. This provided participants with the opportunity to learn more about the organisation’s programs in gender training, advocacy and information dissemination.  Of importance to realize from the seminar was that participants expressed their appreciation of the comprehensive nature of the organisation, which included a Gender Training Institute, a gender-specialised library, and an advocacy programme, which, among other activities, addressed the issue of gender budgeting. The visit sparked a discussion on the relation between NGOs and the national machinery. In particular, it highlighted the positive role that NGOs could play in gender-sensitive planning and budgeting processes, including capacity building and serving as a watchdog to monitor the implementation of government commitments (Regional Training Workshop on Gender-Sensitive National Planning for National Machineries for the Advancement of Women Report, 2001). The issue of understanding budgets remains crucial as the writer alluded in case of Pakistan in order to address rhetoric and action. Budlender (2005) notes that the Tanzanian government and TGNP, have probably gone furthest in stating their determination to move beyond the budget. However, even in Tanzania it has not yet gone much further than agreement that something should be done. At first glance one might think of advocating that “gender equality” is one of the national outcomes as indicated in the Pakistan case. Evidence available in the two areas of discussion has, however, almost certainly shown that the concept of gender equality is too broad, and definitely not sufficient on its own. At best, it might result in some special allocations for women. At worst, it could result in a feeling that gender can be ignored in all the other outcomes.

A somewhat more detailed approach was designed in Tanzania, where one or two indicators were developed for each of the articles of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA). The plan was for these indicators to be reported in each year’s budget documents as a measure of whether the government as a whole was succeeding in promoting women’s equality. Unfortunately, the plan was not implemented as a result of hitches in the overall monitoring system. (Budlender, 2005).Tanzania, however, continued to demonstrate its wholesome desire for gendered budgets when the budget circular issued each year to all line ministries by the Planning and Privatisation Commission (previously simply the Planning Commission) includes several paragraphs instructing the line ministries to adopt a gender-sensitive approach when submitting their budget bids.

There are important lessons to be learnt about the GRB and its impact on gender from the experiences of the two cases under study. Government budgeting is typically thought of balancing the books: money in and money out, with consideration given to wide sectors of the community that will be affected by the budget, such as industry, families, education or health. However, very little consideration is given to the impact budgets have upon men and women respectively. Budget papers focus on financial aggregates of revenues, and expenditures and balances as either being in surplus or deficit. A link between government budgets and gender issues is usually not explicitly made, and gender issues are often addressed by social rather than economic policy. Consequently, government budgets are often perceived as gender-neutral. This gender-neutral assumption ignores the fact that budgetary impacts are often different and unequal between men and women (Budlender and Sharp, 1998). This is because men and women, on the whole, occupy different socio-economic positions, play different roles and undertake different responsibilities in the paid and unpaid economy. For example, women are more likely to earn lower incomes compared to men, hold less wealth, live in poverty with dependent children and undertake more of the share of unpaid work (Bittman, Bryson and Donath, 1993; Budlender, 1996; Aslaksen, Gravingsmyhr and Koren, 1996; UNIFEM, 2000.) Sharp (2003) provides a framework to countries to categorise GRB outcomes into three guiding goals namely, to raise awareness and the understanding of gender issues and the impacts of budgets and policies, to make governments accountable for their budgetary and policy commitments to gender equality; and to change and refine government budgets and policies to promote gender equality.

 Apart from equality Asian and African countries need to take stock of the reality that Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is first and foremost a tool for increasing accountability and accelerating the implementation of commitments to gender equality and human rights. GRB can be used to enforce and monitor human rights. Budgetary allocations can change the way human rights are considered and respected. In a review of the relationship between budgets and human rights, Elson argues that “budget actors are mandated to situate people’s rights at the core of their policies” (Elson, 2006, 1). Vargas-Valente (2002) also argues that gender responsive budgets challenge the notion that governments should only be concerned about economic growth. They also need to be concerned about citizens’ rights, including those of women; promote democratic mechanisms that also respond to demands for democratic governance and state reform from a citizen’s perspective; and enlarge the arenas for consulting civil society, which is always affected by government decisions. For example, education is critical to poverty alleviation and is a fundamental human right.

 A distinguishing feature of Tanzania’s gender budgeting process was that it was externally driven by a non-governmental organisation (NGO): Tanzania Gender Networking Project led by a women,Ms. Gemma Akilimali. Subsequently, a strong coalition formed consisting of planners and budget officers from the Ministry of Finance, National Planning Commission, Health and Education and Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, academics and gender activists. The initiative emphasised policy development, planning and budgeting, decision-making processes and the horizontal allocation of budgetary resources among sectors. The coalition also lobbied for legislative reforms to close gender gaps. The Tanzanian initiative focused on building capacity for analysing gender budgets through developing checklists for the finance ministry to facilitate gender mainstreaming of budget processes and formulating guidelines to collect sex-disaggregated data for budgeting processes. Important lessons from Tanzania’s experience are that there is need for a broad involvement of many actors, including government, NGOs, academics, civil society and parliamentarians. It is also vital that the country empowers NGOs, academics, civil society and parliamentarians with skills to hold government accountable and capacity building to mainstream gender for successful gender budgeting. The extent of women’s existing participation in budget decision -making needs to be examined, as has been done by the government of Tanzania: ‘More than half of all Tanzanians are females. But only a small number of the people who make important decisions about the government budget are women. For example, only 3 of the 30 members of the Finance and Economic Committee of Parliament are women and only 45 of the 275 Members of Parliament are women. With so few women making the budget it is not surprising that it does not effectively meet women’s needs.’ (Government of Tanzania, 2000, 5). One important step is to get recognition that gender equality issues are present in the work of all Ministries, and in a very wide range of programmes, not just in those programme that are targeted to improving the position of women. An example from Tanzania illustrates: Gender as a cross-sectoral issue in Tanzania ‘The Rolling Plan and Forward Budget for Tanzania in the period of 1996/97 –1998/99 Vol.1 has indicated cross-sectoral issues as Environment, Cooperatives, Science and Technology, Rural and urban development, and Population. Gender has not been listed as a cross-sectoral issue…..As a result other sectors do not feel the obligation of taking aboard the responsibility of disaggregation and addressing gender gaps identified in the sectors.  The recommended step was to call for an immediate action can be taken up to include gender among the list of the cross-sectoral issues in the guidelines….’ (Tanzania Gender Networking Programme, 2000). Some initiatives have been taken to implement some of the recommendations resulting from studies on gender budgeting. These included the 1999/2000 Budget guidelines incorporated gender issues.

In conclusion, the aspect of GRB in both Asia and Africa has shown that the concept is still in its pilot stage and there is need to adopt it as a policy and issue policy guidelines. Therefore there is need to promote an active role of both government officials and members of the civil society through regular meeting, workshops and focus group discussions as well as conforming to national and international instruments. More so, there is need for capacity building measures on GRB so that it is a continuous process which should be carried out in a more sustainable manner with more frequent interaction with potential trainers, both local and outside. Although gender sensitive amendments have been incorporated in Tanzania and Pakistan, it is the first step towards achieving gender-disaggregated data which will feed into and reflect positive changes in government policies in the future to empower women and girls.

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