GENDER BUDGETING Making it Happen: Moving from Policy to Practice Honorable Nancy A. Boxill, PhD Fulton County Commissioner Fulton County, Georgia, USA

2 Fulton County, Georgia Population 1,014,932 Countywide Services: Courts, Jail, Health and Human Services Libraries City of Atlanta Population 537,958 Citywide services: Police, Fire, Emergency 911, Permits, Inspections, Parks and Recreation Georgia ATL FULTON COUNTY

3 I. What is a Gender Budget? A budget that accounts for the effects of a government’s expenditures and revenues on both women and men and girls and boys. An instrument for holding government accountable to its gender equality commitments.

4 II. Objectives of Gender Budgets Highlight the gap between policy and programming. Promote the spending of public money in more gender equitable ways. Provide informed participation of disadvantaged and excluded classes. End Gender Blindness in budgets.

5 III. Steps to Success Keep policy in the foreground. Understand the budget decision making process and how the process can be influenced. Stay on message – gender budgeting efforts are strategies for strengthening communities, not favoring women.

6 IV. Budget Preparation Stage Quantify/describe the impact on citizens by gender - women, men, boys or, girls. Provide the number of customers served annually by each program, by gender. If gender data is not available, describe what resources will be needed to collect such data. Determine if proposed fee increases would impact men, women, boys, or girls differently.

7 V. Audit & Evaluation Evaluate the impact and effectiveness of corrective actions. Evaluate outcome measurements against goals for gender analysis / gender budgeting. Develop gender analysis reports. On a voluntary basis, select departments identify additional programs for gender analysis.

8 VI. Challenges Sustaining political will. Sustaining political leadership. Active employee participation. Ongoing evaluation and assessment.

9 VII. Meeting the Challenges Do good work/work as a team. Develop user friendly tools for information gathering. Develop and implement corrective action plans once information has been analyzed. Celebrate each success. Most important - embed!

10 Contact Information “Fulton County Gender Equality” fan page on