A Glance at Some Gender Budgeting Initiatives Throughout Europe By Elisabeth Klatzer, Ph.D, Austrian Gender and Budget Group, Austria |
Gender Budgeting initiatives have started in many European countries, initially inspired by the work in Australia, South Africa and the UK. In recent years a diversification of strategies, methodologies and practices adopting to country-specific circumstances can be observed throughout Europe. In several countries there is work on its way to implement Gender Budgeting into the regular tasks of public administration. At the central government level, the examples of France and Sweden demonstrate established procedures, Other countries are on its way (e.g. Belgium, Austria). Nordic countries pursue common Gender Budgeting activities in the frame of the Nordic Council. Examples of ambitious initiatives at the regional local level are the Basque country (Spain), Berlin (Germany) and some communities in Italy (Modena, Genova). In some countries, civil society initiatives take the lead (e.g. UK). Initiatives in Eastern Europe are emerging recently (e.g. in Bulgaria and Serbia). Some of these will be described in the following. Switzerland Switzerland is one of the Gender Budgeting pioneer countries in Europe. In a period of restrictive budgetary policy the focus of analysis was on who bears the major cost of cuts in public expenditure. A Gender Budgeting pilot study, commissioned by the National Women’s Conference of the Trade Union of Public Employees and the Swiss Conference of Equal Opportunities Officers, was published in 1996. The researchers, assisted by an expert group of women (equal opportunities officers and of the federal statistical department) looked at the consequences of fiscal cuts at all three levels of government activity (Federal, cantonal/Bern and communal/city of Biel). The research focus was not an analysis of the budget as a whole but an analysis of the effects of changes in budgetary policy on men and women. The aim was to develop a methodology to analyse the impact of changes for the whole budget. Three criteria were used to analyse the effects of expenditure cuts:
The analysis of employment effects looked at the development of public administration employment as well as on the employment effect of public expenditures for goods and services by calculating a type of gender multiplier. The results of this initial research demonstrated clearly that at all levels women had to bear an over-proportional cost of restrictive budgetary policies. It led to wide-spread follow-up initiatives. Since the publication of this pilot, several initiatives at the national, cantonal and communal level have been started by women’s coalitions, equal opportunity officers, members of parliament and trade unionists. All were aimed at raising the issue of gender awareness in budgeting. An important strategy is lobbying parliamentary bodies to obtain favourable votes to initiate deepen the analysis. Among the follow-up activities the work in the canton Basel is particularly interesting. A large coalition of women’s groups and institutions pushed for pursuing the topic. In Basel further research was conducted in cooperation with the Statistical Office and in consultation with a group of experts on Gender issues. The methodology was refined and besides gender the criteria age and nationality were included. The results were published in 2003 under the title “The small difference in public finance [1] ”. France Since 2000 the French government publishes the “Yellow Paper” on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (download of the current document – in French – at the Finance Ministry homepage: http://www.minefi.gouv.fr/minefi/publique/budget_etat/index.htm). Its publication is based on a legal obligation. The document is published as part of the annual budgetary material. The first part of the document gives on overview of progress towards equality in different spheres of life. In the second part of the Yellow Paper each Ministry and Department sets out the expenses relating to the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality. In addition, the institutions are requested to be explicit about their policy on gender equality and present indicators to measure progress. It is intended as an information and monitoring instrument, primarily for the legislature. France is a good example of a continuous inside government exercise. As such it is a good starting point. Even though this exercise is not a fully fledged Gender Budgeting analysis it puts together information which serves as a tool for Gender Mainstreaming. Further work to deepen the analysis and formulate specific recommendations on policy action to reduce inequalities is needed. Austria The Austrian case will be described somewhat more in detail due to two reasons: Firstly, the Austrian activities are still quite unknown and not included in standard survey articles about the state of Gender Budgeting. Secondly, the author being Austrian can contribute her insight knowledge. In Austria the independent Women and Budget Group, founded in 2001, plays a leading role. Its initial work was devoted to make the concept of Gender Budgeting known in Austria, to spread knowledge and to motivate government, opposition parties and NGOs to pursue the issue further. With this in mind, the group published a book in 2002: “Frauen Macht Budgets, Staatsfinanzen aus Geschlechterperspektive”. The title plays with the word “macht” which means power and doing at the same time: “Women power budgets/Women, go over budgets. Public finance from a gender perspective” (available in German only). This book explains the concept of gender budgeting, its potentials and its limits, reviews the main international initiatives and contains some approaches to engendering the Austrian national budget. The work on the Austrian budget addresses the overall macroeconomic strategy and its impacts on women as well as government revenue (focusing on taxes, social security and user fees) and selected areas of public expenditure (education and research, labour market policy and funding for women’s organisations). The purpose of the book is twofold: on the one hand, the governments at federal, regional and local level are addressed with a list of demands both, to introduce the concept of Gender Budgeting in a meaningful way into government policy as well as specific recommendations on how to change policies in order to achieve more gender equality. The Austrian Women and Budget Group emphasises that Gender Budgeting is much more than a simple Gender analysis of government income and revenue. The aspects of transparency of the whole budgeting process, the translation of results of the analysis into alternative policies, the inclusion of the overall macroeconomic strategy into analysis as well as the focus on participatory processes are included as equally important. This approach equally guides all subsequent work. In response to the publication more attention was drawn on the issue, especially from women activists, NGOs as well as opposition parties (Greens and Social Democrats). Especially as a response to the increasing demand for more practical assistance in how to do gender budgeting at the local level, some women from the Women and Budgets Group embarked on developing a handbook for introducing Gender Budgeting at the regional and local level (published in 2004, German only, download www.beigewum.at ). Workshops addressed at a broad range of multipliers were designed as well. One main shortcoming of this civil society initiative is the lack of funding and the lack of time of the women involved as several have small children, many full time jobs and/or many other civil society engagements. There have been attempts to spread the ideas among NGOs in order to build up civil society pressure demanding government to take action. But it is hard to maintain the level of activities. Again, it is lack of time and funding. Currently Austria has a conservative/right wing government which is dedicated to neo-liberal policies, including restrictive budgetary policies. Funding for NGOs, especially women’s organisations is being cut repeatedly. Still, due to the attention around the issue, the federal government moved forward. The Ministry of Finance carried out a small exercise in 2002 titled “Is the Austrian tax system in fact ‘gender neutral’?”, which actually was a short data analysis of income taxation. It clearly shows shortcomings of the tax provisions, for example, men profit over-proportionally from tax breaks. Still, even the few results where not incorporated in the current tax reform project, to the contrary, some effects of the current reform reinforce the gender bias. This fits into the trend of other reform projects, like a recent pension reform, women’s special situation and needs are widely neglected. In 2004 the Austrian Federal government decided to implement Gender Budgeting. A Gender Budgeting Working group has been set up but without political power or clear guidelines and without additional resources. And somewhat hastily a section on “Gender Budgeting” was included in the 2005 budget material. Due to the uncoordinated last minute exercise the quality of the material is quite poor and public officials involved are frustrated about this additional task. Recently, two research pilot projects have been launched, one at the federal level and one at the regional level. Both are intended to develop methods and tools to implement Gender Budgeting as part of regular administrative tasks. In spite of the poor performance of the government so far, at this point the strategy of the Women and Budget Group is to cooperate with the government officials in charge and offer expertise. This is motivated by the hope to influence the scope of the exercise and push towards broad implementation and institutionalisation. The Gender Budgeting is part of an ongoing constitutional reform in Austria as well. Due to a coalition of women across political parties in cooperation with the non-governmental experts it was possible to include Gender Budgeting. Agreement has been reached to explicitly state in the Constitution that financial policies shall aim at gender equality. Furthermore it is stipulated in the draft Constitution that Gender Budgeting is included in the annual budget [2] . Sweden Sweden for over 10 years has been producing annual reports on an analysis of the gender impact of current economic policies, e.g. social insurance and pensions, women’s contribution to GNP and productivity of men and women. The document has recently been “upgraded” by moving it to the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance [3] . A gender budget project started in 2002, which is aimed at making gender visible throughout the whole state budgetary process. The project is carried out in co-operation between the Division for Gender Equality and the Budget Department of the Ministry of Finance. Its purpose is to develop methods and tools for gender budgeting and prepare an action plan covering the whole state budgetary process. Social welfare, regional development and transport have been selected areas for pilots. Basque Country In the Basque country (Spain), EMAKUNDE, the Basque Women’s Institute, an autonomous organization dependent on the Presidency of the Basque Government, launched a Gender Budgeting initiative in 1999. With the aid of external experts a comprehensive strategy to implement Gender Budgeting was launched (a documentation of the efforts, including a broad range of materials and the pilot reports – partly available in English – can be found at http://www.emakunde.es/actualidad/presupuestos/indice_.htm). The aim is to implement a gender perspective on budgeting into every administrative unit. An inter-ministerial task force was set up to guide and coordinate the endeavour. A special focus was on preparing public officials to take over the task. A series of seminaries and trainings in the initial phase as well as the set up of support teams facilitated spreading the concept and tools within public administration. Furthermore written material, like a comprehensive handbook, was developed to support analysis at this initial stage. For analysis during the pilot phase several portfolios where selected, Home Affairs, Industry, Trade and Tourism, Health, Culture, Environment as well as Transport and Public Works. The pilot phase was concluded end of 2002. It is especially this initial stage which can serve as a model for other projects to implement Gender Budgeting within public administration. Careful planning, the institutional framework and strategic implementation contribute to its success. Regarding the institutional setup the central role of Emakunde is important. In its board the Basque governor as well of representatives of all important state institutions are present. This gives the guidelines published by Emakunde the necessary backing and facilitates the following implementation. The step wise introduction of the concept at the political level and subsequent process of guided practical analysis in pilot areas created strong foundations for further work. Serbia and Bulgaria Gender budgeting initiatives in Bulgaria and Serbia [4] were initiated and coordinated in 2003 by two women’s organizations, the Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation (BGRF) and the Serb Women’s Center for Democracy and Human Rights (WCDHR). A starting point was the joint project on “Budgetary Implications of Domestic Violence in Bulgaria and Serbia” supported by a grant of AWID (Association of Women’s Rights in Development). As domestic violence was identified as one of the major women’s issues in both countries it was chosen as a pilot to develop a methodology for gender budgeting. At an initial stage, NGOs, women’s groups and researchers were invited to contribute papers on the topic. These research findings formed the basis of developing a methodology to analyse budgetary implications of domestic violence. This initiative has established a concrete base for starting gender budgeting in Bulgaria and Serbia in other areas as well. It prepared the ground for the co-operation between civil society and the state in this specific area. The aim of the project was to bring Gender Budgeting as a key strategy to be adopted by the government to the attention of society in general as well as specialized institutions and agencies. Both organizations are involved in the “Gender Budgeting Initiative in the CEE/NIS Region” of the Network East-West Women (NEWW) initiated in 2003. This initiative is aimed at sharing information and experience on Gender Budgeting. A central goal is to make government policies and priorities more responsive to gender issues by popularising Gender Budget analysis, working towards fully incorporating gender concerns into public spending and towards increasing women’s participation in budgetary decision making processes. European Union financial and macroeconomic policies call for attention The policies at the European Union level have an increasingly important impact on financial policies of the individual member states. Thus a focus needs to be directed to the EU macro-economic policy documents. There has been some activity around this issue in 2002 but without effective follow-up. Above all the Guidelines of Economic Policy need to be broadened by introducing a gender equality perspective and including gender budgeting instruments. Some major challenges ahead
About the author:
Elisabeth Klatzer, Austria, PhD in Economics, Master in Public Administration Harvard University. Working on Engendering Budgets since about five years: as member of the Austrian Gender and Budget Group, a civil society initiative, as researcher and as public official (Austrian Federal Chancellery).
[1] Gleichstellungsbüro/Statistisches Amt/Frauenrat Basel (Ed.), Der kleine Unterschied in den Staatsfinanzen. Basel 2003. [2] The adoption of the provisions – the idea of gender budgeting is included in several public finance articles – depends on whether the whole constitutional reform will be adopted.
[3]
The current document is available – in Swedish – under [4] This section draws on: Dokmanovic, Mirjana. Djuric Kuzmanovic, Tatjana. Tisheva, Genoveva (2004), Gender Budgeting Initiatives in Serbia and Bulgaria –Experiences and Challenges, proposal and paper, International IAFFE Conference on Central and Eastern Europe: A feminist economic dialogue on transition and EU-enlargement, 21-22 January 2005, Budapest.
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