Gender budgeting in Pakistan – issues and policy interventions
Project Summary
Gender Budgeting is a good monitoring tool to determine the extent to which
national budgets are designed to address the gender mainstreaming issue. It is
usually believed that budgets are gender-neutral policy instruments. However,
the ’gender-blind’ manner ignores the different, socially determined roles,
responsibilities, and capabilities of women and men, whereby women tend to be
disadvantaged, leaving them with less economic, social and political power
compared to men. It is will not be incorrect to suggest that by making gender
blind budgets the state unconsciously contributes to the gender inequality. In
order to understand as how the usual and orthodox budgetary process exacerbates
gender inequality the interrelationships between budgets, growth, gender
inequality and poverty need to be highlighted.
Gender budgeting is not only of particular significance per se for gaining
gender equality but it has a deeper significance for overall poverty reduction
and meeting the specific numerical and time-bound Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
particularly halving poverty by 2015. This can only be achieved if governments
allocate adequate resources to ensure that women, who constitute more than fifty
percent of population in Pakistan, have equal access to genuine entitlements
that offer them equal opportunities to join in the mainstream and contribute to
overall growth and development of a country.
The overall development objective of the gender reforms in Pakistan is to make
women economically, socially and politically empowered through transforming
gender relations to effectively create a society that fulfills its domestic and
international obligations of a developmental state.
The empowerment of a woman is not a linear and straight forward process. It is a
policy monolithic created by a series of interconnected processes. It begins
with the process of increasing awareness of her equitable potential, capacities
and rights in an enabling environment. This environment is engendered by the
mutual efforts of different stakeholders in which the commitment of government
is the most important because traditionally the governments are considered as
responsible for making investments in social sectors which have ends other than
commercial interests as pursued by the private sector. All the policy
formulation and implementation takes place within the government, albeit having
inputs from various quarters such as civil society, pressure groups, media and
advocacy campaigns. However, ultimate decision maker is the government or the
state.
The role and commitment of state is also important in a reform effort, such as
gender budgeting initiative, since reforms may seem maverick contested,
complicated and political in nature. This posits brining a change in the
political, legal, administrative, economic and social structure of a state which
may be acceptable to some and may not be acceptable to others. Here lies the
commitment of the state that if it believes in reforms, such as making a basis
for the gender budgeting, then it should provide them with the sap and strength
by its commitment.
The government in Pakistan is convinced that gender mainstreaming is necessary
in order to make women equal partners and share holders in development. Various
NGOs, civil society organizations and donors are promoting gender mainstreaming
to help the government in this bid. However, these efforts can not reach
fruition if the Government, as the major service delivery provider in the
country, does not initiate focused interventions and investments towards
achieving gender related development.
As a first step of any government’s commitment to improve women lot adequate
resource allocation occupies a pivotal position. The Government of Pakistan at
present is following gender blind budgeting paradigm in which it is assumed that
the budgetary allocations will automatically cater to the women needs. The poor
development indicators on women literacy, health coverage and employment
opportunities suggest that gender blind budgeting does not automatically
translate into expending money on women development.
This project therefore suggests that there is a need for shifting priorities in
favor of gender sensitive budgeting at the Federal, Provincial and local level.
In order to achieve this the problems and issues related to gender budgeting
need to be identified and discussed to suggest possible solutions as how to
introduce gender budgeting in Pakistan.
It is expected that the outcome and recommendation of this project would result
in enlarging choices for the Government, NGOs, civil society, donors and women
by transforming gender relations through formalizing women rights into financial
policy instruments.
The Project Proposal
According to the latest census Pakistan has an estimated population of 125
million, 51% of which are women. One of the main reasons why Pakistan has not
been able to achieve economic growth has been the inadequate investment of
resources in its people, in particular, women.
A number of factors contribute to the disadvantaged position of women in
Pakistan. They have low levels of skill and literacy and lack of organizational
structures, through which resources could be mobilized for their own benefit. A
gender segregated school system limits their access to formal education, as
boys' schools are accorded priority. While poor health conditions and a high
fertility rate constrain their development, lack of mobility further aggravates
the situation.
The traditional concept in Pakistan is that women belong to the home and should
remain within its "four walls". Any attempt by women to step out of the home in
search of employment or education is seen to be deviating from traditional norms
and is socially unacceptable. Many families live on subsistence level because of
the male members' refusal to allow the women to seek employment opportunities
outside the home. This situation is more characteristic of rural areas. In urban
areas, while these social undertones exist, they are less pronounced due to
economic needs, exposure, education and the demands of urbanization. It is
socially more acceptable for women in these areas to venture outside their
homes. Nevertheless, while being somewhat acceptable, the deep-rooted
perceptions of society are reflected in the discrimination and harassment meted
out to women who attempt to step out in public. This results in women's access
to education, employment, training opportunities and available social services
(however inadequate), being restrictive. This saga of women exclusion and
discrimination is locked in cause and effect relationship of inadequate resource
availability for women. This has contributed to causing uneven poverty among
women.
Poverty is measured, whether in terms of income, rights (e.g., the right to
political participation) opportunities (eg., education) or access to social
services (e.g. health) , the fact remains that it has a woman’s face in Pakistan
and no poverty reduction strategy can be meaningful unless her needs are
effectively addressed and they can gain their entitlements without hindrance. To
expect that policy instruments such as a budget will have the same impact on
women and men wrongly assumes that they experience poverty in a similar way,
varying only in intensity. The fact is that due to their different socially
determined roles, responsibilities, capacities and opportunities the government
policies, programs and projects do not benefit them equally. How government
spends and raises money affect women and men differently as well. The budget is
not a gender neutral instrument. Gender budgeting has to be brought from the
margins to the center of the development paradigm. It has to be mainstreamed as
well into democratic governance and decentralization processes, both of which
play a crucial role in the attainment of the millennium development goals. This
however, is a daunting task in a traditional and resource poor countries like
Pakistan.
There is a whole array of traditional reasons for creating inhospitable
conditions for progress and development of women on even keel. The state itself
has not done enough to lift women from the mire of traditional regression.
Although there are recent attempts of policy interventions to improve the plight
of women, however, these are sporadic attempts that are concentrated at the
federal level. One of the most important interventions to improve the women lot
is by providing adequate budgetary allocations. In other words there is a
greater need of introduction of gender sensitive budgeting in the national
budget making process.
Project interventions
For the purpose of this project budget making may be considered at the following
two levels.
Budget making as a technical process
Budget making as a political process
Budget making as a technical process involves technical or professional
processes at Finance Division (Federal level), Finance Department (Provincial
level), Finance and Planning Department (District level) and Finance office (Tehsil
level), for budget articulation at their respective levels.
Budget making as a political process involves process of political participation
from national parliamentarians, provincial parliamentarians, district councilors
and Nazims, teshil councilors and Nazims and Union councilors for budget
articulation at their respective levels.
Traditionally budget is considered to be a technical person’s job. The Finance
Division and Finance Departments make budgets which are then presented to the
respective level of legislature to approve it. Any expenditure that is not voted
is not considered a valid expense. Usually the approval of budget by the
national, provincial and district assemblies is a ritual which is performed in a
routine fashion. Although opposition benches try to question the proposed
budgetary allocation the budget is normally passed without undergoing effective
political scrutiny. Although there is permanent quota of women in elected
councils from national assembly to union councils yet but to extent these women
question the budget from gender perspective is a moot point.
Therefore neither the technical experts nor the political representatives debate
and analyze budget with a gender lens. This project therefore aims to study the
technical and political process of budget making by comparing the various
efforts being made by different actors so that relevant policy interventions may
be identified in order to institutionalize gender budgeting.
The following interventions are planned under the project:
Conducting an evaluation study of the ongoing efforts of gender budgeting in
Pakistan to analyze the course followed by donors, government and civil society/
NGOs on gender budgeting and suggest policy options in the context of governance
paradigm. The evaluation study will focus on assessing the possible outcome of
gender budgeting programs.
Comparing gender budgeting in Pakistan with other countries and draw possible
lessons for implementation in the local context.
Study the portfolio of projects on gender budgeting and assess whether all
projects and policies on gender budgeting have common focus?
Analysis of the basis of budgetary process of Ministry of Finance and Economic
Affairs and considerations taken in articulating budget document.
Analysis of the budget approval process – structured interviews from national,
provincial and local elected public representatives, especially women
parliamentarians, and gather primary data.
Global Situation
Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) was started in 1984 by the “femocrats” in
Australia who argued that government expenditures in programs and projects have
a differential impact on women and men. In the 1990’s, South African women
introduced the Women’s Budget Initiative (WBI), a collaborative effort of women
Members of Parliament whose numbers shot up to an unprecedented 30% of the
National Assembly in 1991 and non-governmental organizations. Interest in GRB
was renewed after the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women when governments
committed themselves to the Platform for Action’s (PFA) in twelve critical areas
of concern. The allocation of public funds by governments to meet the PFA’s
strategic objectives emerged as one of the major advocacies of women’s groups
all over the world. However, this change came about in a phased manner. At
present over 60 countries are working on GRB iitiatives.
The first generation of gender-responsive budgeting targetted th following :
1) cocentrate on the expenditure side of the budget;
2) Mainly supported/ initiated by civil society organizations, academics,
parliamentarians, or Ministries of Finance
3) GRB remained at the priphery rather than at the core of the development
paradigm.
The second generation of gender responsive budgeting shifted sway to the
following:
1) Focus on both the revenue and expenditure aspects of the budget;
2) Connect GRB with the broader issue of government accountability and
responsibiity for resources utilization; and
3) Shift the focus to economic decision-making as part of democratic governance
where the citizens have the right to participate in the formulation of policies
related to the generation and utilization of public finance to meet their basic
needs.
Women’s Budget initiatives exist in a number of countries both in the North and
the South and their aims are to examine existing budgets for their differential
effects on women and men, especially where budgets are claimed to be
.gender-neutral. Efforts to engender national budgets can be divided into those
that are initiated outside government and those initiated inside government.
South Africa, for example, has both levels of activity.
GB, however, is a gigantic task given the poor resource picture of Pakistan,
traditional resource use in budgeting, lack of gender sensitized policies and
lack of relevant research and expertise on gender budgeting.
Objective and goal of the project
The critical area of gender sensitive budgeting is usually ignored in the
overall national effort to mainstream gender in Pakistan. The overall objective
of this project proposal is to identify issues and problems lying at the
interface of gender and fiscal management in Pakistan. This project focuses
analysing the ongoing GB efforts and to suggest policy interventions. The
specific objectives of the project are as follows:
Analysis of existing basis of budget making process of allocation of resources.
Identify capacity gaps, issues and problems in establishing gender budgeting
programs and policies of donors and government.
Suggest policy measures to best implement the gender programs in Pakistan.
Attempt to suggest institutional mechanisms and procedures for systematic gender
budgeting based on the experience from other countries.
The overarching objective of the project is to integrate gender budgeting issues
into relevant national, regional and OSI institutions and processes, such as
SAARC women and other organization in the OSI network.
Research Methodology
The following methods will be used:
(1) Review of the literature on budgeting, process of budget making and the
relevant budgetary legal framework.
(2) Structured as well as non-structured interviews with public representatives
to gather primary data.
(3) An international comparative study of key features of gender budgeting
between Pakistan and other countries with experience of gender budgeting.
Scope of the project and sustainability
The project will have a double focus: on one hand it will compare and evaluate
the gender budgeting programs focused on identifying the problems and issues in
the national context of gender mainstreaming and allocable resources. On the
other hand it will attempt to focus on the different approaches and meanings of
gender in different cultural settings, usually, but not necessarily typified by
four provinces of Pakistan where notion of gender mainstreaming is not similar
and universalistic as it is generally believed. While keeping the diversity of
approach towards gender the experience of international best practices will be
utilized. The Federal Finance Ministry, the Provincial Finance Departments, the
district finance departments and the Women Development departments at the
federal and provincial levels will be the main government departments whose
polices would need a shift in order to allow the Gender reform budgeting become
a permanent policy instrument. The sustainability of the project lies in its
practicable recommendations formulated after the completion of evaluation study.
Advocacy/Local partners in this initiative
NGOs working on gender issues-SPDC etc
Donors- World Bank, UNDP, ADB and Dfid etc.
Think tanks working on gender reforms-SDPI etc.
Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), Islamabad.
Federal and Provincial ministries and relevant departments of women and social
welfare.
Pakistan Development Forum
Federal and Provincial finance, economics and development ministries.
Women parliamentarians.
Partners in OSI and international Network
This initiative expects to build gainful synergies with the partner organization
of Soros foundation network. This list of the identified organizations is as
follows:
Organizations in International gender policy network (IGPN)
Foundation for the women of Hungary (MONA), Budapest
Center for Partnership and Equality, Romania. (CPE)
Institute for social and gender policy, Russia
Roma women initiative (RWI)
OSI Network Program (NWP
In addition the project also expects to build linkages to connect OSI to other
policy and academic networks which are closely concerned with the gender
budgeting such as GEM-IWG (the international working group on gender,
macroeconomics and international economics), Utah university, USA.