The Status of Gender Budgeting in Europe

1
The Status of Gender Budgeting in Europe

• Seminar for Office of the Equal Opportunities
  Ombudsperson Centre for Equality Advancement,
  Lithuania
• September 4-5, 2008

2
EU Commitments

• GE Treaty of Rome, 1957
• Instruments strengthened equal pay legislation,
  access to goods and services etc
• EU Parliament Resolution on Gender Budgeting
  recommendations, 2003
• Commitment to Gender Budgeting in EU Commission
  Gender Equality Road Map, 2006
• High Level Conference, Belgium 2001 declaration
  to introduce GB by 2015 across EU
• EU Commission Feasibility Study, 2007 (report due
  May 08)

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• Report on Gender Budgeting by the Council of
  Europe and its recent commission for the
  production a practical manual for the
  implementation of gender budgeting
• Conclusions of German EU Presidency Conference on
  Gender Budgeting, 2007 Gender-oriented budgets
  are both a reflection of and a prerequisite for a
  successful equality-oriented policy.
• Beijing PfA Financial Arrangements Art 345
  National Level Article 346

4
Belgium - Law on Gender Mainstreaming

• Transposes article 1 of the directive 2000/73,
  2002 - equal treatment of women and men in
  employment
• Ref Beijing PfA integration of gender
  dimension into policy, measures, budget
  preparation and actions in order to correct and
  avoid inequalities between women and men

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Belgian Law specific duties

• The budgets related to the actions which aim at
  achieving equality of women and men are
  identified by department, public enterprise and
  public institution of general interest, in a
  gender note, attached to each draft of the
  general expense budget.
• Each year, on the occasion of the discussion of
  general policy documents, each minister presents
  the actions, measures and projects which
  contribute to the achievement of the strategic
  objectives discussed in 1 as well as to the
  promotion of equality of women and men.

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• Each minister integrates the gender dimension
  into every policy, action and measure for which
  he/she is qualified (and) watches over the
  implementation of the strategic objectives
  mentioned in article 2, 1 and of the
  integration of the gender dimension in management
  plans and management contracts as well as in any
  other instrument of strategic planning of the
  federal public services, the Ministry of Defence,
  programmatory public services, public
  institutions of social security, federal
  scientific institutions and public institutions
  of general interest he/she is in charge of.

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Belgian Law focus on budgets

• Each Dept spend is to be attached in a gender
  note to Federal budget
• Each minister to account for spend on those
  actions on specific project and programmes toward
  the promotion of gender equality

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• gender indicators
• Impact assessment
• The King determines the model for the impact
  evaluation report, called gender test
• Development of gender-disaggregated statistics in
  all areas
• Applies to public contracts the granting of
  subsidies

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• In order to guarantee the implementation of this
  law, an interdepartmental coordination group has
  been set up. This group is made up of people
  coming from each ministers strategic cell, of
  one person from each federal public service as
  well as of representatives of the Institute for
  the Equality of Women and Men.

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• In keeping with its task defined in the law of 16
  December 2002 concerning the foundation of the
  Institute for the Equality of Women and Men, the
  Institute for the Equality of Women and Men is in
  charge of the guidance and support of the
  integration process of the gender dimension
  within policies, measures and public actions.

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Austria

• In Austria, gender budgeting was introduced at
  the state level in accordance with the
  ministerial council decision of 9th March 2004.
  With this decision, the government defined the
  overall goal of taking into account gender
  mainstreaming in all budget policy measures of
  the ministries.
• An inter-ministerial working group for gender
  budgeting was set up with a view to ensuring the
  implementation of this decision. The members of
  this working group are budget experts as well as
  GM officers drawn from all ministries and
  departments. The working group is normally
  convened jointly with the inter-ministerial
  working group for gender mainstreaming, as such
  joint meetings create synergies.

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• The Federal Ministry of Finance conducted a study
  entitled Is the Austrian income tax system
  really Gender-Neutral? which was last updated in
  2006. It contains an analysis of the
  gender-specific effects of wage tax and social
  insurance. Another study addresses the question
  Is the Taxation of Income Gender-Neutral? This
  study was motivated by the assumption that
  despite the gender-neutral wording of tax
  legislation, it has gender-specific effects.

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• The instrument of gender audits was enshrined in
  law in the Ministry of Finance by way of the
  Regulation of 24th May 2006 concerning the plan
  for the advancement of wom-en in the Federal
  Ministry of Finance
• A guide for gender budgeting in public
  administration will be published in the first
  half of 2007. This guide for gender budgeting in
  the public administration forms part of a pilot
  project which was launched by the former Federal
  Ministry of Health and Womens Concerns.

14

• The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and
  Labours plan for the advancement of back women
  (Federal Law Gazette II No. 246/2006), emphasises
  the need for enshrining gen-der mainstreaming
  (equality of women and men in all political and
  social areas) as a next principle to be applied
  in all activities undertaken by the Federal
  Ministry of Economic Affairs and Labour.

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• Federal Ministry of Science and Research Gender
  budgeting in research programmes, which was
  carried out upon the recommendation of the
  Council for Research and Technology Development
  and financed using special funding provided by
  the Ministry of Finance (Research Drive 20012006)

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• Gender Aspects in the Preliminary Federal Budget
  Introduced in 2005, the notes of the Federal
  Finance Act, which provide explanations relating
  to all ministries, also contain a separate
  section entitled Gender Aspects of the Budget.
  The ministry-specific explanations primarily
  comprise general descriptions of programmes as
  well as analyses of policies and budgets. In its
  Preliminary Budget for 2005, for example, the
  Ministry of Finance published a study on income
  taxation and in the following year analysed the
  effects of the most recent tax reform from the
  perspective of gender

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Austria

• A recent decision of the Council of Ministers of
  March 5th, 2008 establishes two guiding
  instruments for implementing gender mainstreaming
  in the legislative process and gender budgeting.
• We now have a very good legal basis for gender
  budgeting in the Federal Constitution but the
  implementation  needs political will,
  understanding and cooperation of the experts in
  different fields on different levels

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CZECH REPUBLIC

• Government resolution tasking government with the
  implementation of gender budgeting - to provide
  equal access to financial resources to women and
  men
• Group charged with developing methodology
• Methodology widely disseminated to cites and
  municipalities

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CZECH REPUBLIC

• Transnational project on GB funded by EU
  Commission
• Partners with Italy, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria
• Goals of the project
• to analyze situation of gender budgeting in each
  partners state
• to support the implementation of gender budgeting
  as a standard tool in the budgetary process.

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Denmark

• 8 Step Tool Box as part of GM Work
• Aim Description of why resource allocation is to
  undergo a gender equality evaluation arguments
  on benefits
• Timing Explanation of when a gender equality
  evaluation should be made
• Purpose of the activity Description of how the
  activitys purpose impacts on the way the gender
  equality evaluation should be made.
• Target group Explanation of the considerations
  that should be made regarding the target group

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Denmark Step 1, 2005

• 8 Step Tool Box as part of GM Work
• Type of activity Explanation of how the kind of
  activity impacts on how the gender equality
  evaluation is made
• Information Explanation of what information is
  needed when gender mainstreaming
• Methodology Brief description of the methodology
  of equality evaluations
• Data A thorough description of the importance of
  data for the gender equality evaluation of
  resource allocation. This sub-phase also includes
  a link to the tool for working with G-D data and
  statistics.

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Denmark Step 2

• Each ministry to select an programme for gender
  budget analysis one with the potential to
  produce new and relevant info and within core of
  ministrys work
• Conclusions
• A lot of good results resulted in more more
  targeted use of public funds
• Ministries with a clear policy on gender equality
  in the field create the best results
• A lot of the ministries need for policies on
  gender equality first in order to conduct budget
  evaluation
• There is still a need for G-D data in quite a few
  of the project. Several projects had very little
  G-D data which is essential
• The tool was thought to be very useful.

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Denmark Step 3

• In 2007 a new inter-ministerial action plan is
  formulated. Gender equality evaluations of
  resource allocations will be an integrated part
  of the new action plan.

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France

• Le Jaune Budgetaire

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UK

• UK WBG
• Scottish WBG
• Wales WBG
• Parliamentary Question
• The UK Government are supportive of efforts to
  achieve gender equality and continue to work very
  closely with both the Women's National Commission
  and the Women's Budget Group on promoting gender
  equality within the UK.
• In 2008, HM Treasury will be conducting further
  work that will determine whether it is prudent
  and feasible to disaggregate departmental
  expenditure statistics by gender.

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Italy

• Gender budgeting since 2000 at local level,
  municipal, provincial, and regional level - not
  national
• Since 2002 Provincial and Municipal Network to
  assist spread of practice
• 2006 12 Provinces 9 Municipalities

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• Province of Siena - a feasibility project on
  gendering the Province Budget
• guidelines for the municipal administrators
• designing training model on gender budgeting with
  the following training activities of the
  professional figure

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Sweden

• The Swedish Government has given the Government
  Offices an explicit assignment to mainstream
  gender into its decision-making, particularly
  into the contents legislative and budgetary
  processes.
• Mainstreaming gender equality into budget work
  may be viewed as part of the process of next
  improving financial state management and control
  by including a gender perspective when seeking a
  resource allocation that reflects political
  priorities, high productivity and efficiency in
  public administration.

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Sweden

• 1st mooted in gender equality policy bill 1987/88
• Few initiatives until 2002 An Equal Share
• 2004 moved from project stage to core work of
  government ministries
• 2003 Action Plan for Gender Equality
• 2004 6-year plan for GM, especially budgets

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Sweden - GB in Government Offices

• The aim is to mainstream a gender equality
  perspective into all parts of the budgetary
  process.
• 3 different areas
• the economic management and control of government
  agencies
• the decision-making material on which economic
  policy is based, and
• statistics disaggregated by sex as an important
  tool in pursuit of gender equality.