What is "Gender Budgeting"?

My name is Alexandra Brennan, and I am the Coordinator of the Northern Ireland Women’s Budget Group (NIWBG). Originally from the United States, I came to Northern Ireland to complete an MA in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice at QUB in September 2019. Following my completion of the course, I begin my role at the NIWBG in October 2020.

The NIWBG was founded by Lynn Carvill, Chief Executive of Women’sTEC. The aim of the group is to achieve gender economic equality in Northern Ireland through advocating for policies and change to improve gender equality outcomes, scrutinising policies and budgets with a gendered lens, and offering support and expertise to decision-makers. Internally, the membership of the NIWBG includes women’s sector organisations, trade unions, academics, and wider civil society. Externally, the group works with sister organisations in Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland on North-South/East-West issues.

I have always been passionate about gender equality, but before I started my role at the NIWBG I would have naively believed that budgets and other types of fiscal policy were ‘gender-neutral’. Working at the NIWBG has completely changed the way I view the world I live in. I do believe that increasing financial literacy, government transparency, and the understanding of gender equality and wider equality issues would help decision-makers and the public recognise the gendered fiscal and economic issues and see the need for systemic change.

What is gender budgeting and where did it come from?

Gender budgeting is a set of tools and processes that can help recognise systemic disadvantages and lead to budgets and policies that promote greater gender equality. If implemented, policy makers would have to consider the gendered impacts of spending and revenue raising decisions and how to use these mechanisms to bring about gender equality. Women’s intersecting identities are also included in this analysis and policy makers are expected to promote these areas of equality as well - it’s doing equality analysis through a gendered lens. 

It is important to note that gender budgeting is not about allocating more funds but about making the available resources have the maximum impact.

It is about including a gender perspective into budget planning and analysing budgets taking into account their impact on women and men, girls and boys, introducing a gender perspective into the entire budget, including seemingly “gender-neutral” budget lines, and reprioritising and refocusing spend and restructuring taxation with a view to promote equality.

Gender budgeting is transformative, assists in transparency and accountability, and is of value in delivering economic benefits, rights and equality, and securing sustainable peace. It’s also good budgeting; over half of OECD member countries have implemented some form of gender budgeting and are looking to improve each year. The creation and first implementation of gender budgeting was in Australia in 1984, yet it hasn’t taken long for the concept to transform and expand. There are a number of different tools that are utilised across the globe and the beauty of gender budgeting is that it is tailored to the context of where it is being implemented.

Why is it important for NI to have gender budgeting?

In Northern Ireland, gender inequality is systemic and widespread, and while we have made strides in some areas, there is still a long way to go before we achieve gender equality. I believe gender budgeting is something that can bring us closer to this goal, as it requires changes to our decision-making processes to include a gender lens that was not previously there. Gender budgeting is transformative, it assists in transparency and accountability, and it is of value in delivering economic benefits, rights and equality, and securing sustainable peace.