Gender Budgeting: Status, Benefits and Challenges – Explained, pointwise

Introduction

The Union Budget 2023-24 has been presented in the Parliament. In 2005, the Government had started releasing a Gender Budget along with the Union budget. Gender Budgeting is a strategy to ensure that promises on gender equality show up in public budget allocations as well. However, achieving gender equality through Gender Budgeting has remained a challenge. The share of Gender Budget (in total Government Budget) has remained low despite growing at an annualized rate 13% since inception. With some reforms in the implementation, the Government can improve the efficacy of Gender Budgeting in terms of outcomes.

What is the meaning of Gender Budgeting (GB)?

Gender Budgeting is the use of fiscal policies and public financial management tools to promote gender equality. It is an exercise that applies a ‘Gendered-lens‘ to the allocation and tracking of public funds. This is done in order to ensure that governments are acutely aware of the impact of their choices on gender outcomes. Gender Budgeting is not limited to funding explicit gender equality initiatives. It also entails analyzing fiscal policies and budgetary decisions to understand their impact on gender equality and using this information to design and implement more effective gender policies. It translates the gender commitments into fiscal commitments.

Evolution of Gender Budgeting: It was first introduced in 1984 in Australia to evaluate the impact of the national budget on women and girls. The approach was adopted by other countries including Canada, South Africa and Philippines etc. In 1995, the United Nation’s Beijing Platform for Action called for integrating a gender perspective into government budget processes.

In 2015, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) called for adequate resources and tools to track budget allocations for gender equality (SDG indicator 5.c.1). The Addis Ababa Action Agenda for Development (2015) recognized the importance of tracking resource allocations for gender equality and strengthening capacity for Gender Budgeting.

In 2020, G20-Women, an official engagement group to the G20, called for greater investment in GB to ensure that fiscal policies advance gender equality in the short and long-term recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is the status of Gender Budgeting in India ?

The Government of India had adopted Gender Budgeting in 2005-06.

In India, Gender Budgeting comprises two parts: (a) Part A reflects Women-Specific Schemes i.e., those which have 100% allocation for women; (b) Part B reflects Pro-Women Schemes i.e., those where at least 30% of the allocation is for women.

The gender budgeting framework has helped the gender-neutral ministries to design new programs for women.

Gender Budgeting Cells (GBC): The Government has mandated the establishment of Gender Budgeting Cells in all Ministries and Departments as an institutional mechanism to implement Gender Budgeting. The GBCs conduct gender-based impact analyses, beneficiary needs assessments, and beneficiary incidence analyses and determine the room for re-prioritizing public expenditures and better implementation.

Role of The Ministry of Women and Child Development in Gender Budgeting: The Ministry has made consistent efforts to support the institutionalization of GB at the State/UT level. The Ministry also provides financial support to Government training institutions for capacity building of Government officials to enhance Gender Budgeting in States/UTs.

Role of States/UTs in Gender Budgeting: In a reply to a question in the Lok Sabha (March 2021), the Government responded that 27 States/UTs have adopted Gender Budgeting and have taken various steps to address gender gaps and advance gender equality. Goa, Haryana, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Telangana, Chandigarh, Ladakh, Puducherry haven’t adopted GB yet.

Source: Mint, Lok Sabha

These steps take by States include identification of a nodal Department for Gender Budgeting, constitution of Gender Budgeting Cells, formulation of State Women/Girls Policy, creation of Gender Data Bank and adding Gender Budget Statement in the State Budget. Additionally, 21 States/UTs have established designated State Nodal Centres for sustained capacity building efforts on GB.

Budgetary Allocations: India’s Gender Budget has allocated INR 2.23 lakh crore in the Union Budget 2023-24. This is ~30% higher than Budgetary allocation in 2022-23 (INR 1.71 lakh crore, Budget estimate) but only ~2% than actual allocation (INR 2.18 lakh crore, Revised Estimate).

Part A of the Gender Budget has allotted over INR 88,000 crore in FY2023-24. It is dominated by the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (both Urban and Rural housing). These two schemes attracted 90% of the total funding for Part A of the Gender Budget. Part B has received INR 1.35 lakh crore. Part B comprise several schemes pertaining to rural development, health, education and women empowerment.

Souce: Mint

Important women-centric schemes include: (a) Safe City Project, an initiative under the Nirbhaya Fund scheme for ensuring safety of women and children; (b) SAMBAL, a sub-scheme comprising of old schemes like One Stop Centre, Women Helpline and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao; (c) SAMARTHYA, includes women empowerment programmes like Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana and Swadhar Greh. SAMBAL and SAMARTHYA are part of the larger umbrella scheme ‘Mission Shakti‘, an integrated women empowerment programme.

What are the benefits of Gender Budgeting?

Understanding Impact of Budget: Gender Budgeting approach leads to better informed policy choices. This approach makes the policy makers more aware of the potential impact of policy decisions on gender.

Better Utilisation of Resources: It can support efforts to not only design, but re-design fiscal policies, adjusting resources to better address persistent gender gaps.

Achievement of Gender Equality Goals: It leads to greater focus on achieving gender equality goals. A focused approach leads to better results. An IMF Working paper on the impact of Gender Budgeting in G20 countries notes that Gender Budgeting leads to more programmes incorporating gender related goals. Every country analysed in the research paper had some positive outcome in terms of gender equality.

Source: IMF

Wider Societal Outcomes: There are many other factors that impact the achievement of gender equality, including  societal attitudes and behaviours. Gender Budgeting practices can make a difference in the way governments consider policy in respect to gender and lead to more conscious and better-informed decision making.

What are the challenges in Gender Budgeting?

Low Allocation: Despite increase in allocation in absolute terms, the share of Gender Budget in overall Union Budget has always remained less than 6%. The highest allocation was in 2011-12 at 5.8%.

Source: CPR

Skewed Allocation: The Gender Budget consists of two parts based on fund allocation. Part A with 100% allocation for women has lower share in the Gender Budget. The highest share for Part A was 46% in FY2021-22. Since 2005-06, the share of Part A was less than 30% of the overall Gender Budget for 12 years.

Source: CPR

Technical Challenges: Implementation of Gender Budgeting faces several challenges like lack of guidance, coordination, expertise among personnel, and low quality of gender impact assessments  (GIAs).

Source: IMF

Absence of Gender Disaggregated Data: Lack of gender disaggregated data make it difficult to formulate effective policies. Additionally, it limits the ability to accurately measure the effectiveness of the Gender Budgeting policies and initiatives. IMF paper notes that Governments often point out to their inability to track gender-sensitive policies over their implementation cycle, due to lack of budget classifications or failure to incorporate gender classifiers in the financial management information systems (FMIS).

Skewed Implementation: Many sectors/schemes that can have impact on women, do not practice Gender Budgeting. NITI Aayog paper on Gender Mainstreaming (June 2022) has noted that only 62 out of 119 centrally-sponsored schemes are practising GB. The paper noted that the record of Ministers associated with Environment and Climate Change, Urban Transformation, Skill etc. have done poorly.

Sectoral Performance on Gender Mainstreaming, Source: NITI Aayog

Under-Reporting: The Gender Budget does not take into account some of the major schemes that benefit women. For instance, the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) aims to provide household tap connections to all rural households by 2024. Tap water can particularly improve women’s quality of life because it is mostly women and girls who gather water in households that do not have regular water access. Yet, none of the allocations in the JJM have been reported in the Gender Budget.

Moreover, the schemes that allocate less than 30% funds for women, are not covered in Part B of the Gender Budget.

In addition, there is lack of clarity on the way schemes allocate at least 30% of their funds for women. For instance, the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) accounted for 24% of the Gender Budget in 2023-24 and was placed in Part A of the GB because the scheme encourages houses to be owned by women and thereby might benefit women. On the other hand, only 27% of the funds allocated under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) accounted for Part B of the GB, despite women being 55% of MGNREGS workers

Lack of Accountability: There is no mandate to have a minimum allocation with respect to Gender Budget. In the absence of any accountability mechanisms regarding Gender Budgeting, monitoring and implementation continue to be inadequate.

What can be done to make Gender Budgeting more effective?

First, NITI Aayog has recommended that a Gender Budgeting Act can mainstream gender-based budgeting across all Ministries and States/UTs. The Act can also mandate all data collecting institutions to analyse and publish gender-disaggregated statistics. This can make the process of GB more scientific.

Second, the NITI Aayog has also recommended that the Ministry of Women & Child Development (MWCD) should encourage State Governments to increase budgetary allocation towards women and child development, protection and welfare schemes to ensure improved fund availability and utilisation of schemes. It has also emphasised on the need of finalising the National Policy for Women with revision in 2016 Draft Policy.

Third, there is a need to have uniform guidelines regarding Gender Budgeting. Evidence from the IMF survey shows that without guidelines or a common methodology for impact assessments, it is difficult for line Ministries to implement a common approach to GB analysis.

Fourth, the tools to monitor implementation and collect data must be improved. Better data can help in deeper analysis that can help in accurate measurement of outcomes and designing targeted initiatives for gender equality.

Fifth, the IMF recommends that fiscal policies should focus on areas where gender gaps persist. Gender Impact Assessments (GIAs) should be undertaken to help understand the gender impact of current and alternative policies. The analysis can be utilized to better redesign the policy interventions.

Conclusion

Gender Budgeting is one of the most potent tool for gender mainstreaming and achieving gender equality. India has been one of the early adopters of Gender Budgeting. Yet the process faces several challenges. The next step should be to plug these gaps and make the process more effective. As India enters the phase of Amrit Kaal, the Prime Minister has highlighted the importance of the role of Nari Shakti in achieving the goal of developed economy by 2047. This should be actioned through more responsive and effective Gender Budgeting.

Syllabus: GS I, Social empowerment; GS II, Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes; GS III, Government Budgeting.

Source: Mint, Centre for Policy Research, IMF, NITI Aayog