Fifth Global Forum on Re-Inventing Government Mexico City, Mexico. November 3-7, 2003 Fifth Global Forum on Re-Inventing Government Mexico City, Mexico. November 3-7, 2003 Politics, Good Governance and Gender; Gender Budgeting Experiences in Three African Countries Winnie Byanyima MP (Uganda)

States, Democracy and Gender States not gender-neutral. Dynamic institutions that construct & legitimise gender identities, relations, inequalities. Democracy not defined in gender terms. Democracies without women & democracies where men/boys benefit more from state opportunities e.g education, jobs, contracts, subsidies etc International/national strategies to increase women’s representation & make states deliver gender equitable services.

Accountability and Gender Accountability discussions about preventing corruption & effective & efficient delivery of public services. Vertical & horizontal accountability Accountability for gender equity in allocations & in service delivery weak or absent; vertically or horizontally.

What is Gender Budgeting? Not separate budgets but audit tools to enhance vertical & horizontal accountability for gender equity in budgets. Also used to gender analyse macro- economic policy. examination of budgets to determine likely impacts on women and men, girls and boys from different social and economic groups.

What’s the Theoretical Basis of Gender Budgeting? Gender is a social category, like class and race, which also cross-cut gender. Gender Analysis; analyse/plan for all people, women & men, girls & boys, all backgrounds. Gender Equality; in capabilities, in economic opportunities to have access and control over vital resources, in security from violence, and having agency to influence decisions that affect one.

Theoretical Basis (continued) Women & men play important roles but placed and remunerated differently in economy. Artificial separation of public (market & government) and private (mostly household & community) work hides care economy, cheats women of the rewards for their labour & undermines their economic and social status, results in resource misallocation, inefficiencies in economy.

Gender Budgets therefore; Highlight definite but different contributions of women&men to economy incl. care economy. Expose linkages and trade-offs between household and market economy, Call for creative ways of recognising, counting and rewarding women’s unpaid labour & for equitable sharing of budget. About rights, efficiency & accountability.

One Methodology; Rhonda Sharp Gender-Specific Expenditures; analysis exposes commitment to addressing & removing gender- specific constraints. Expenditures to achieve equity in public service; assesses commitment to institutional transformation, questions biases of policy- makers/implementors All other mainstream expenditures; likely gender impacts of policies and allocations analysed. Exposes ´costs´ of hidden economy.

Expanding Democratic Politics & Promoting Good Governance GBIs enhance substantive representation of women in legislatures. Strengthen participatory & accountable budgeting. Citizens can use GB techniques to engage with budget decision-makers. Legislators can use GB tools to increase their oversight of whole budgeting process. Can be used to promote cost-effective, honest, equitable service delivery by citizens and politicians.

How Can GBs Strengthen legislative Oversight ? Can increase effectiveness of public spending.(e.g. through beneficiary assessments). Can increase accountability to poor women and girls (e.g. by linking expenditures to laws/commitments) and expose corruption (e.g.through time use analysis, revenue incidence analysis, public expenditure tracking). Can increase transparency by requiring disaggregated data/other info for impact assessment and by requiring re-formating of budgets to enable gender analysis & advocacy.

How Can GB Strengthen Participatory Democracy? GBIs are usually partnerships to share information, skills resources & build political power to cause change. Involve legislators, govt planners, independent researchers, CS advocates & journalists. Increase citizen participation in policy/budget making processes. Can result in new/collaborative relationships between executive/legislatures and civil society actors.

Some Lessons Learnt Political context is important for success. Importance of institutional mechanisms for gender mainstreaming to anchor GB. Partnerships sustain GBIs, but delicate management of collaboration and contention to aviod co-optation. New devt frameworks like PRSP and budget reforms like MTEF, link resources to outcomes. Increase applicability of GB.

Some Lessons Learnt (contd) GBIs call for a new approach to economics, call for redistribution. Resistance to change expected, is often subtle but real. Resistance reduced through partnerships of sharing visions, attitudes, skills and information. Incentives are needed to encourage change. But lawful confrontation also builds pressure for change.

It is not the End. We Continue to Struggle and to Learn. Thank you for your Attention.