Welcome to TGNP's Gender Budgeting Initiative Discussion Forum

Welcome to the E-discussion on Gender Budgeting

Moderated by TGNP

  Tanzanian Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) in collaboration with UNIFEM Southern Africa welcomes you to this online discussion on Gender Budgeting.  First phase of this discussion was launched in December 2005, second phase started in February 2006 and now we are in third phase.

I am Aida Kiangi, and I will be facilitating this discussion on behalf of TGNP.  I am looking forward to lively discussion and sharing of experience with all of you.

Introduction

Gender budgeting was originally inspired by the early experience of countries such as Australia  and South Africa, and given further momentum by the United Nations' commitment to gender budgeting in the Beijing Platform for Action called for the integration of a gender perspective into budgetary decision-making. To date gender budgeting exercises now take place in more than forty countries around the world. They take place both inside and outside government and there is a wide diversity in the ways in which they are conducted and their scope.

Objective of Discussion 

UNIFEM Southern Africa is in the second phase of supporting implementation of Gender-Responsive Budget (GRB), as a tool to increase accountability, participation and gender responsiveness of economic governance in the SADC region. The second phase of this programme which is implemented in Mozambique for this region,  has been formulated with a view to building lessons learned and the experiences of the first phase which ended in 2003.

In addition, TGNP also works to promote gender equity through participatory budgets and budgetary processes in order for them to have beneficial impacts on different categories of the population (i.e. women, men and youth).This work is done within Tanzania, in the region and beyond.

The Discussion Forum will be guided by the following objectives

• To enhance conceptual understanding by different actors in the SADC region on Gender Budget Initiatives (GBI);

• To promote discussion and knowledge sharing around GBI issues in the SADC region and beyond;

• To share experiences and challenges around GBI applications and results.

This is an opportunity for individuals, groups and networks in the SADC countries and worldwide to share their knowledge and experiences with regard gender budgeting.  What do you think are some of the main lessons that have been learned so far? What policies and programs can be replicated and scaled-up? And what should we avoid? Such sharing of experiences should give useful ideas to others working on similar issues worldwide.

Structure

This discussion on Gender Budgeting will be organized around three themes that parallel these Strategic Objectives. Each week will begin with a short introduction and a set of suggested questions posted by the TGNP facilitator, Aida Kiangi. She will also post a summary at the end of each week. Your contributions will be summarized in a final report to UNIFEM Southern Africa.  

Week 1 & 2, Gender Budgeting: Conceptual Issues
Week 1 & 2 will focus on two areas i.e. (i) what gender budgeting is and why is it important and (ii) who are the stakeholders; their roles and responsibilities.

Week 3 & 4, Gender Budgeting: Contextual issues
Week 3 & 4 will focus on three areas (i) political and economic context that is most conducive to gender budgeting, looking specifically at the neo-liberal economic reforms most SADC countries implementing, (ii) in this context who the beneficiaries of GBI are; and (iii) and what should be the role of CSOs (i.e. unions, NGOS, CBOs).

Week 5 & 6, experiences and challenges in promoting GBI

Week 5 & 6 will focus on (i) sharing experiences in promoting informed participation in budget process at (national, local and grassroots levels) and (ii) what challenges and strategies exists adopting GBI

Aida Kiangi
Forum facilitator for  TGNP