What Is Gender Budgeting?

In the present scenario, Gender Budgeting acts as a process that tackles abandonment, abuse, sexism, and assault. The process kickstarts with the budget and goes through an entire chain of policy processes to achieve crucial objectives, including gender integration and assuring equal progress for males and females alike. Thus, Gender Budgeting helps to minimise incidents of gender disparities. Even in modern society, gender disparity exists in many fields.

The finance minister has proposed that to lead women empowered development, the special focus shall be made on schemes that target the concepts of nutrition and employment for women. For this purpose, the spending on the gender budget has also been increased to INR 131700 crore for the year 2019-20. However, there is a lack of adequate human resources to implement the correct and proper objectives of Gender Budgeting, and monitoring the policies remains a weakness in the absence of a designated mechanism.

Significance Of Gender Budgeting

A gender budget is not a separate budget but more about applying gender as a mainstream concept in budgeting. Broadly, it implies incorporating a gender perspective throughout the budgetary process and analysing revenues and expenditures to promote gender equality.

National budgets tend to impact men and women in different terms during resource allocation. Women, who constitute 48% of the population in the country, generally lag on many social fronts such as health, education and economic opportunities. Their vulnerability and lack of access make it pertinent to warrant special attention through Gender Budgeting.

Gender Budgeting In India

The Indian budget first introduced the concept of Gender Budgeting the budget in 2005-06. It comprises two parts, which reflect specific schemes for women and pro-women schemes. In India, Gender Budgeting is not merely an accounting exercise but a means for the actual development of new programs for women. Today, most departments and ministries have an institutional mechanism for Gender Budgeting.

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Steps For Gender Budgeting

The framework for conducting successful Gender Budgeting is a five-pronged approach.

• In the first stage, the situation is analysed for all given sub-sectors of the society, including men, women, girls and boys.
• In the second stage, an assessment is made to identify the extent to which the sector's policies address the prevalent gender issues in society and cognisance of the gaps identified in the first stage.
• In the third stage, another assessment is carried out to identify the adequacy of allocations through the budget to implement the required gender-specific policies and programs identified in the second stage.
• In the fourth stage, general monitoring is done to identify whether the money spent on the policies went as planned and how it was delivered and to whom.
• In the fifth stage, a deep assessment is made of these policies and programs' impact, as described in the first step.

FAQs on Gender Budgeting

Q.1. When did the concept of Gender Budgeting first come to light?

It was in 2001 when the then finance minister of India made a mention of Gender Budgeting in his budget speech.

Q.2. When did the expenditure on women-centred policies begin as per Gender Budgeting norms?

As per Gender Budgeting norms, After analysis of the budget of select states, the expenditure started from the union budgets of the years succeeding 2002-03, 2003-04, and 2004-05.

Q.3. Mention the two parts of Gender Budgeting.

There are two parts to Gender Budgeting. Part A includes women-specific schemes that carry 100% allocation for women, and Part B includes pro-women schemes that carry at least 30% allocation for women.

Q.4. Mention some states which have adopted Gender Budgeting.

After the discussion on the strategy of Gender Budgeting, it was later adopted by Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and more.

Q.5. who is in charge of evaluating Gender Budgeting schemes?

NABARD consultancy currently evaluates the performance of the schemes under Gender Budgeting.