sustainable development 20 years on from the ... - José Eli da Veiga

161
One solution is to develop and implement gender-responsive planning and public budgeting (see
box III.2) in order to guarantee —among other factors— that funds will be earmarked to meet the
differing needs of women and men, to ensure that the outcomes of participatory and planned <strong>development</strong>
are equitable (UN-Women, <strong>20</strong>10a).
Almost half the countries in the region have conducted pioneering experiments in participatory
gender-responsive budgeting: Argentina, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Brazil, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, the Plurinational State of
Bolivia and Uruguay. This trend has been supported by decentralization processes promoting local
government autonomy and women’s participation in decision-making, which has also provided women
with opportunities to organize themselves and to take part in budgeting for projects that meet their own
needs and those of their communities.
Box III.2
GENDER-RESPONSIVE BUDGETING IN ECUADOR
In <strong>20</strong>10, the gender-responsive budgeting programme of the Ministry of Finance of Ecuador won the German
Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) prize for innovation in addressing gender inequalities. A public
expenditure analysis conducted as part of the programme revealed that only 5% of Government resources benefit
women, children and adolescents directly, mostly through allocations to health and maternity issues. As a result,
14 government institutions introduced gender indicators into their performance monitoring systems, with a view to
determining to what extent public resources are responding to gender equality concerns and to take the necessary
corrective action. Even though gender-responsive budgeting is used mainly for social services, the Ministry of
Environment of Ecuador has already begun to mainstream the gender perspective into its planning. Special
allocations were included in the <strong>20</strong>11 budget for promoting and supporting <strong>sustainable</strong> <strong>development</strong> activities, as
part of a policy for institutionalizing gender and multiculturalism in environmental management.
Source: United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), How can aid be genderresponsive
in the context of the new aid modalities? Gender Responsive Budgeting, <strong>20</strong>10; and Ministry of Finance of
Ecuador, La equidad de género en la pro forma del Presupuesto General del Estado <strong>20</strong>11, December <strong>20</strong>10.
2. Children and youth in <strong>sustainable</strong> <strong>development</strong>
The important role of children and young people, highlighted in principle 21 of the Rio Declaration and in
Agenda 21, chapter 25, requires education to be considered in ensuring the effective participation of civil
society. Chapter 36 states that education is linked to virtually all areas of Agenda 21. It is recognized that
education unequivocally plays a key role. In demographic terms, the region’s growth rate has fallen
significantly over the past 50 <strong>years</strong>, dropping from an annual 2.8% in the middle of the twentieth century
to 1.3% in <strong>20</strong>10 (UNESCO, <strong>20</strong>11). This provides States with excellent opportunities to invest in
improving the quality of education and closing the quality gap between State education (which basically
serves the poor) and private education (which is beyond the means of disadvantaged groups).
The statistical evidence demonstrates that the education gaps of today, which have also been a
historical feature of the region, may be explained to a greater or lesser extent by demographic, social,
ethnic, cultural and environmental factors associated, inter alia, with housing, overcrowding, and access
to water and sanitation (Katzman, <strong>20</strong>11) (see box III.3). In particular, socioeconomic status, living in a
rural or an urban area and household income are some of the factors that determine access to the right to
education. Although considerable progress has been made on gender equality, there continue to be wide
gaps between urban and rural areas and along the lines of ethnicity and household income.