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Things you should know about gender responsive budgeting

2025-08-20

Things you should know about gender responsive budgeting

Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is really one part of mainstreaming. It does not aim at creating separate budgets for women. According to Wiki-Gender, gender responsive budgeting:[i]

  • Refers to the process of conceiving, planning, approving, executing, monitoring, analysing and auditing budgets in a gender-sensitive way,
  • Involves analysis of actual expenditure of revenue (usually of governments) on women and girls as compared to expenditure on men and boys,
  • Helps governments to decide how policies need to be made, adjusted and re-prioritized,
  • Is a tool for effective policy implementation where one can check if the allocations are in line with policy commitments and are having the desired impact.

Wiki-Gender also lists five steps of gender budgeting:[ii]

  1. An analysis of the situation for women and men and girls and boys (and the different sub-groups) in a given sector.
  2. An assessment of the extent to which the sector’s policy addresses the gender issues and gaps described in the first step. This step should include an assessment of the relevant legislation, policies, programs and schemes. It includes an analysis of both the written policy as well as the implicit policy reflected in government activities. It should examine the extent to which the above meet the socio-economic and other rights of women.
  3. An assessment of the adequacy of budget allocations to implement the gender sensitive policies and programs identified in step 2 above.
  4. Monitoring whether the money was spent as planned, what was delivered and to whom. This involves checking both financially and the physical deliverables (disaggregated by sex).
  5. An assessment of the impact of the policy/program/scheme and the extent to which the situation described in step 1 has been changed, in the direction of greater gender equality.

A 2018 report by UN, Gender Responsive Budgeting in Asia and the Pacific – Key Concepts and Good Practices,[iii] looks at how different countries of the region have advanced with gender budgeting. Myanmar has taken some steps, but Philippines is the leader. 

Example: Philippines and gender responsive budgeting

Stages of budget cycle where GRB adopted: formulation, legislation, implementation and audit/review 

Main driver/leader: Philippine Commission on Women (PCW)

Success factors: strong institutional framework; capacity-building of government and non-government entities; monitoring and accountability mechanism 

1. Context:  Philippines has been engaged in gender-responsive budgeting, at the national and local levels, for over two decades. 

The current Gender and Development (GAD) Budget Policy has evolved from a series of legislative mandates, including the Magna Carta of Women (1999) which requires all government agencies to allocate at least five percent of their budgets to address gender issues - with the intention for the five per cent to influence the remaining 95 per cent. 

2. Implementation: Government agencies are required to produce a GAD plan and budget, as well as a report, on an annual basis. Technical support and capacity-building assistance is provided to agencies by the Philippine Commission for Women (PCW) through training, workshops, advisory services and written guidelines. Aside from the PCW, oversight agencies for the implementation of the GAD Budget Policy include the Department of Budget and Management; Department of the Interior and Local Government; National Economic and Development Authority; and Commission on Audit. 

One unique feature of GRB in Philippines is the implementation of gender audits as part of the mainstream audit processes, accompanied by strict measures for non-compliance.

Philippines has also taken steps to promote GRB at the sub-national level, including through the provision of technical assistance in conducting gender analysis of the socioeconomic situations of Local Government Units (LGUs) and integrating sex-disaggregated data into local planning and budgeting.

3. Results and challenges: Increased compliance and submission of the annual GAD Plan and Budget; institutionalization of the GAD Focal Point System in agencies and LGUs; increased attribution of regular programmes to the GAD Plan and Budget; mainstreaming of the GAD perspective in formulation and implementation of agency plans and programmes; and an increase in the number of top level champions on GAD, both at the national and local levels. 

However, critical challenges also remain, including uneven level of capacities of GAD focal points and project implementers in mainstreaming GAD perspectives; lack of effective tracking of GAD spending; assignment of Focal Point positions to mostly women staff as GAD is considered “for women” only; and low GAD budget utilization since gender equality is not a priority agenda for critical agencies and local chief executives.

4. Lessons learned and the way forward: GRB in Philippines has enabled considerable advances in ensuring programmes, projects and activities are more gender-responsive. However, most agencies continue to focus on the five per cent of the GAD budget, rather than the remaining 95 per cent. Therefore, further efforts are particularly required in enhancing the understanding of gender mainstreaming principles amongst government officials.

The World Economic Forum has some tips about gender responsive budgeting:[iv]

  • Legal requirements matter. Providing gender budgeting with legal status helps ensure its continuity when political actors change. Austria, Bolivia, and Rwanda mandate gender budgeting in their constitutions. 
  • The leadership of the ministry of finance is crucial. Our analysis and experience show that gender budgeting is more likely to be sustained if the ministry of finance leads. Albania, Korea, and Uganda are three such examples. 
  • Civil society, gender and other ministries, parliaments, and academia are also key players. In Timor-Leste, the prime minister and parliamentarians were essential in getting various resolutions passed. The United Kingdom’s Women’s Budget Group started in the 1980s and conducts a thorough annual, gender-sensitive analysis of the budget. 
  • Align goals with national gender equality plans or the Sustainable Development Goals. Early on, Morocco and Afghanistan aligned their objectives with the Millennium Development Goals and now the Sustainable Development Goals, and their own national development plans. 
  • Taxes should not be overlooked. Most countries have focused on spending, but tax policies are not always gender neutral. Austria has identified a gender equality objective, and some governments—including Finland, Ireland, and Spain—have committed to undertake studies looking at the gender aspects of revenue policy. 
  • All levels of government have a role to play. Uganda’s “Local budget clubs” allow citizens to discuss spending priorities and hold governments accountable. Indian states with gender budgeting efforts have made more progress on gender equality in primary school enrolment than those without. 

[i] https://www.wikigender.org/wiki/gender-budgeting/

[ii] https://www.wikigender.org/wiki/gender-budgeting/

[iii] https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/SDD_Gender-Responsive_Budgeting.pdf

[iv] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/do-the-math-include-women-in-government-budgets