THE 9TH AWID FORUM 3RD

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THE 9TH AWID FORUM 3RD 6TH OCTOBER 2002
GAUDALAJARA, MEXICOPanel on Gender Responsive
Budgeting An Effective Response to Economic
Globalisation.

• A Presentation by
• Mukunda Julius Mugisha
• Forum for Women in Democracy
• fowode_at_utlonline.o.ug
• mukundajulius_at_yahoo.co.uk

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THE GENDER INEQUALITIES IN UGANDA HAVE PERSISTED
DESPITE GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO ADDRESS THEM

• Female contribution to labour for
  Agriculture 70-80
• Female control over cash crops 9
• Female primary enrolment (2000) 47
• Female primary teaching force (2000) 34
• Female students in government technical
  schools 15.6

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WOMEN STILL FACE MANY DANGERS IN THEIR
REPRODUCTIVE ROLE IN UGANDA
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Women are not benefiting equally from the country
resources

• The senior officers were taking 40 of the
  district wage bill
• Women form the majority of casual labours
• Salaries of casual labours where women form the
  majority came last.(Source Kabale district
  management sector report 200)

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BUT WHY DO GENDER DISPARITIES PERSIST.

• The society structure
• Cultures, laws, customs
• Decision making processes
• who has power over resources
• Poor representation
• Trade and other related economic policies

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How trade and related economic policies have
worsened gender inequalities.

• The principle of competition
• More men that women are involved trade (in Uganda
  only 9 of women have control over cash crop
• Government budget are gender blind
• The unfair economic system where informal sector
  is neglected
• Becoming more of a consuming society that a
  producing one
• A market approach to governments(governments
  becoming business, privatisation and competition
  with other government-conducive atmosphere for
  investors.

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How budgets can be gender blind( source World
Bank report 1995)
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What can be done to change the trend.

• Sensitisation about gender issues
• Making gender sensitive laws
• Affirmative action(UPE, 1.5 point to University,
  women members of parliament e.t.c.)
• Women in development programmes
• Provision of credit to women groups
• And many others.

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BUT ALL THAT HAS NOT WORKED ACCORDING TO
PLANS.WHAT IS PLAN B?

• Gender budgeting is the only way now.
• Its an attempt to analyse the impact government
  programmes and budgets make on the poor women
  and men, girls an boys and how the people respond
  to them.

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FOWODES GENDER BUDGET INITIATIVE

• The objectives
• To gender analyse government policies and budget
• Train stakeholders in gender budget techniques
• Make women contribution to the economy feasible
  and their needs central to the budget debates
• To increase transparency in the determination of
  government priorities and in public spending

• The Goal
• To advocate for gender sensitive national and
  district budgets that address the needs of poor
  women and men, girls and boys equitably and give
  full attention to other marginalised groups such
  as people with disabilities

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Objectives cont.

• To enable women politicians to participate
  effectively in determining resource allocation.
• To influence government spending in an equitably
  manner
• To increase parliaments and councils roles in
  shaping the budget priorities and holding
  government accountable.

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THE GENDER BUDGET STAKEHOLDERS

• The politicians who make laws
• The researchers who conduct the research
• The NGOs/CBOs who del in economic advocacy
• The government technocrats who implements our
  recommendations
• The media who puts government on pressure

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The Gender Budget Process

• Introducing the project stakeholders
• Training in gender budgeting
• Gender budget analysis
• Review of draft research reports
• Editing and publishing

• Advocacy activities
• Dissemination
• In house evaluation
• The gender budget cycle goes along the the
  national budge district budget cycles .

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Challenges of implementing a gender budget
imitative

• There have been a number of challenges that
  cannot go unmentioned, they include
• Lack of skills to analyse budgets leave alone
  analysing from a gender perspective.
• Understanding the concept of gender has also been
  a problem
• Opposition from the economists is also another
  challenge.
• Lack of gender disegragated data
• It a slow and challenging process

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Some Insights.In Gender Budgeting We Usually Ask
Some Key Questions

• Who actually benefits from the money allocated?
  Does the money reach its intended beneficiaries?
• Is the money allocated in the best way
  administrative costs versus service delivery?
• Is the situation improving or is there any
  impact?

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Ugandas Budget 2002/2001 Sector Allocations
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Our Gender Budget Analysis Briefly.

• Government is not committed to improve the social
  sectors where women are involved most
• Administrative cost dont benefit women because
  they form less age of the total workforce
• Government need to invest more in social sectors
  especially agriculture and health .

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Our Gender Budget Analysis in the Healthy Sector.

• According to Gender Budget 1999/2000 government
  spent 4.7(27 billion) of the total recurrent
  expenditure to the health sector compared to
  14.4Finance and Planning and 32.6 Defence got.
• Of the 27billion, 49(13billion) was allocated to
  Mulago hospital and the rest was allocated to the
  MoH headquarters and the districts.
• This skewed allocation in favour of Mulago
  hospital has negative gender implications as it
  is at the expense of other units such as rural
  districts from which the poor would benefit.

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Analysis Cont.

• Of the 11billion (42) of the recurrent
  expenditure that is given to the MoH and the
  districts over a third (38.9) remains at the
  headquarters.
• Women form only 21 of senior decision making
  positions.
• Community care, which includes primary health
  care (PHC) and benefits the poor women and men,
  receive only 8 of the funds.

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Some Achievements

• The National Budget process has increasingly been
  made more participatory.
• There is generally increased awareness for the
  importance of Gender budgeting as a powerful tool
  to macro-economic policy and advocate for gender
  equity in public expenditures
• FOWODE has so far published her first Gender
  Budget and hope this will be widely read.
  Publishing of the Second Gender Budget is in
  progress.

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Achievements Cont.

• At the district level we have been able to
  influence the district councils to consider
  passing policies that are in favour of the
  marginalised groups in their district
• And also the issuing of guidelines by the CAO to
  the heads of departments to be gender specific in
  service delivery and also to start generating
  gender desagregated data
• We have developed a gender budget training
  package where we have developed a gender budget
  training manual

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Achievements Cont.

• We so far trained more than 500 gender budget
  stakeholders and we are still training.both from
  Uganda and abroad

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Lessons Leant

• Gender Budget initiatives are most effective when
  implemented as a collaborative.
• Gender analysis of budgets is a new area which
  requires adequate planning, a lot of creativity
  and is a slow process more especially when there
  is inadequate gender disaggregated data
• The effectiveness of the GBP depends on the level
  of political support
• There a great need for gender disegragated data

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Lessons cont.

• There is also need for the development of gender
  checklist
• More funds should be allocated to the gender
  focal points for easy mainstreaming and
  sensitisation of gender in government
  departments.

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Conclusion

• Gender budgeting is a tool of promoting and
  recognising the need for right of women and
  other marginalised groups to own and control
  resources. It can also help to understand the
  negative effects of economic globalisation by
  identifying what works and what cannot work.

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I THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO ME