Budgeting for Women's Rights - Gender Responsive Budgeting

A DOMINATE PLACE Jacquelyn Oliver 11121200 NOVICE AMATEUR SHOWMANSHIP 6024400 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNTER UNDER SADDLE 4025200 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNT SEAT EQUITATION 11TOO SLEEPY TO CHIP Renee Holstege 11024400 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNTER UNDER SADDLE 110KC CHIPS SHEIK Joseph Normand 10921200 NOVICE AMATEUR SHOWMANSHIP 3624000 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP 3324200 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN PLEASURE 40SHADOWS BONANZA Susan Kuznia 10921200 NOVICE AMATEUR SHOWMANSHIP 1523800 NOVICE AMATEUR TRAIL - ALL AGES 4124000 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP 1525100 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNTER HACK 425200 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNT SEAT EQUITATION 34A Flashy Version Stephen Erdman 10621200 NOVICE AMATEUR SHOWMANSHIP 3124000 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP 4124200 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN PLEASURE 34JUST GET N ZIPPED Stephanie Mae Cline 10621200 NOVICE AMATEUR SHOWMANSHIP 4223800 NOVICE AMATEUR TRAIL - ALL AGES 224000 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP 1624200 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN PLEASURE 2424400 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNTER UNDER SADDLE 725200 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNT SEAT EQUITATION 15A BLAZIN HOT LEAGUER Karen Larsen 10324000 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP 4024200 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN PLEASURE 63UNHURRIED Kellie Roth 9923800 NOVICE AMATEUR TRAIL - ALL AGES 1824200 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN PLEASURE 1724400 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNTER UNDER SADDLE 64A SLEEPY MARGARITA Meggen M Morrow - Baynes 9023600 NOVICE AM. WESTERN RIDING 523800 NOVICE AMATEUR TRAIL - ALL AGES 5824000 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP 2624400 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNTER UNDER SADDLE 1DONT SKIP THE DETAIL Tammy M. Gasper 9021200 NOVICE AMATEUR SHOWMANSHIP 1624000 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP 3824400 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNTER UNDER SADDLE 925200 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNT SEAT EQUITATION 27EXCELLENT QUESTION Melissa Breuker-Siebelink 8521200 NOVICE AMATEUR SHOWMANSHIP 3424000 NOVICE AMATEUR WESTERN HORSEMANSHIP 124400 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNTER UNDER SADDLE 525200 NOVICE AMATEUR HUNT SEAT EQUITATION 45

I. Public RevenueWhat are the key features of public revenue?Revenue refers to the amount of resources that a governmentraises to pay for public expenses. The revenue side of the budgetstates this amount and also sets out how the government intendsto raise these resources. There are generally five ways thatgovernments raise revenue:• Direct taxes, such as personal income tax. These taxes are paiddirectly to the tax authority.• Indirect taxes, such as Value Added Tax (VAT), excise tax, andimport duties. Indirect taxes are taxes that are levied on thepurchase of goods and services. VAT is a broad-based sales tax,levied on most goods and services. Excise taxes are levied on thepurchase of selected goods, such as alcohol, cigarettes and petroleumproducts. Import duties are taxes charged on goods whenthey are brought into a country from abroad. All of these taxes areindirect in the sense that the taxes are remitted to the tax authoritiesby businesses, but the burden of the tax is passed in whole orin part to consumers through higher prices.• User fees. People pay user fees as a charge to access particularpublic services such as health, education, water, sanitation, andelectricity.Can revenue-raising discriminate against women?Revenue-raising measures have different impacts on differentgroups in society, and the way in which revenue is used can redistributeresources amongst different groups in society. Governmentscan use this redistributive function as a way to addressdiscrimination against women and further their substantive equality.However, revenue-raising practices may often explicitly and/orimplicitly discriminate against women:• Income tax is normally “progressive” in that it places a proportionatelyhigher burden of tax on tax payers with higher incomes.Income tax can discriminate against women, both explicitly andimplicitly. Income tax systems explicitly discriminate against womenin a number of ways. One instance of discrimination occurs whenincome tax systems allow only husbands to file a joint tax return fora married couple. Another instance is when a higher rate of tax islevied on married women, even if they are allowed to file individualtax returns. A further instance is when tax allowances, intendedto aid with the support of dependents, are only paid to husbands.Joint filing systems implicitly discriminate against married womenwhen they aggregate the earnings of wives and husbands for taxpurposes, and levy the tax on the joint income. This means thatwomen pay a higher de facto rate of tax on their earnings than ifthey were taxed separately from their husbands.• Indirect taxes are “regressive” if they are levied on essential itemsbecause they take a greater share of the income of low-incomehouseholds than that of high-income households. Indirect taxes donot explicitly discriminate against women: women pay the samerate of tax as men when they buy the same product as men. Indirecttaxes can, however, implicitly discriminate against women becauseof the unequal allocation of resources within households. Theseeffects can be demonstrated by looking at the impact of VAT andexcise taxes on women as compared to men:––VAT: VAT is frequently levied on many essential goods required fordaily living, such as food, paraffin, soap, sanitary products andchildren’s clothes. Very often women are responsible for buyingthese goods; at the same time women’s incomes are often lowerthan those of men. This means that women pay a higher proportionof their income buying these goods than men would. Wivesoften lack sufficient bargaining power in households in order topersuade their husbands to provide extra cash for householdexpenditures, so that the cost of VAT would be shared fairly. Ifwomen cannot afford to pay the higher prices that VAT entails,they take on extra burdens of unpaid work, such as growing thefood themselves and collecting wood, instead of buying it.Excise taxes: Many of the goods on which excise taxes arelevied are ‘luxury’ items, like tobacco and alcohol. In many countriesmen tend to consume more of these products than women.Men may therefore pay a higher share of their income in excisetaxes than women. Men however, also tend to have sufficientbargaining power within households to transfer the burden of taxBUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

to wives and children, by reducing the amount of cash they makeavailable for the purchase of goods and services that are jointlyconsumed by household members.• User fees: User fees are regressive and usually impact disproportionatelyon women and girls because of gender inequalities withinhouseholds. For example, introducing user fees for education andhealth may lead to a disproportionate reduction in the use of theseservices by women and girls. This is because poor parents prioritizethe schooling of their sons and poor women cannot afford to payfor health services in pregnancy. When governments set the level ofuser fees, they often fail to take account of women’s lower incomes.Using household per capita income to set user fee rates may resultin reducing women’s and girls’ access to services because rates thatare deemed affordable on a household basis may not be affordableto women within those households. For example, a water project inwestern Kenya discovered that users were not able to pay the fullamount of the fee despite high average household incomes in thearea. This was because women were responsible for paying waterfees and the incomes which they controlled were much lower thanthe average per capita household incomes.How does CEDAW apply to revenue raising policies?CEDAW principles of substantive equality, non-discrimination,participation and modification of social and cultural patterns ofconduct, require, to varying degrees, that:Income tax systems are designed so as to ensure that women’sshare of incurred tax is commensurate with their share of earnedincome• CEDAW’s requirement for gender equality in taxation doesnot mean that men and women should each pay 50 percentof tax revenue. According to widely accepted principles ofpublic finance, equality in taxation is based on the ability of thetaxpayer to pay. Where men have higher incomes than women,they can afford to pay more taxes and should therefore have ahigher tax incidence than women and vice versa. To monitor theincidence of income tax by sex, governments need to collectsex-disaggregated data on income tax payers. For example, inMexico, the Gender Responsive Budget Initiative of the State ofOaxaca requires that data on the tax payer’s sex be registered, andthat the information on men’s and women’s share of taxes be madepublicly available.Explicit discrimination in income tax is eliminated by reform of the tax law• Explicit discrimination in income tax systems does not comply withArticle 2 of CEDAW. It may also implicate other CEDAW provisions.For example, allocating tax exemptions and allowances for thesupport of dependents only to husbands infringes on CEDAW Article13(a) which obliges States to ensure equality between women andmen in the right to family benefits. Such policies mistakenly assumethat women do not use their income to support dependents.Income tax systems should not perpetuate gender stereotypes inwhich men are breadwinners and women are homemakers, butinstead support the modification of social and cultural patterns ofconduct to promote substantive equality• Income tax can perpetuate stereotypes, on the one hand, bydiscouraging married women’s participation in the labor market,and on the other, by discouraging men’s participation in unpaiddomestic work. For example, studies suggest that women’s higherde facto tax rate that results from joint filing of income tax returnscreates disincentives for married women to participate in the labormarket. These impacts are in violation of CEDAW provisions onsubstantive equality (Article 3), women’s right to work on equalterms with men (Article 11), women and men to have the samerights and responsibilities in families (Article 16) and transformationof stereotypes (Article 5). Instead, governments should have taxprovisions that create incentives for changing the traditional divisionof labor in the home and promote women’s participation in thelabor market by, for example, providing a refundable caregiver taxcredit that could be divided between partners who equally shareunpaid care work.BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

Basic necessities are exempt from VAT in order to ensure that VAT is equitable in its incidence and burden on poor women• VAT does not explicitly discriminate against women. However, ittends to implicitly discriminate because the incidence of the tax onconsumers is higher for poor consumers that for rich ones. Sincewomen’s incomes tend to be lower than men’s, the incidence willtend to be higher on average on female consumers than on maleconsumers. One way that governments can avoid this implicitdiscrimination is to exempt basic necessities or goods that aretypically consumed by poorer households from the VAT system. Forexample, in South Africa, a selection of basic foodstuffs such asbrown bread, maize, milk powder and dried beans are exempted.VAT policies also affect informal sector enterprises where mostwomen’s enterprises are concentrated. In many cases, governmentsset a minimum size of enterprise to register in order to beeligible for VAT tax rebate (for the inputs used in production). If thereis a minimum size of enterprise that can register, or if women tendto register less than men do, this can result in a lack of substantiveequality in tax burden between male and female owners of enterprises.To reduce inequalities in the tax burden of VAT, governmentsshould investigate and remedy factors that prevent women-ownedinformal enterprises from claiming rebates on the VAT they pay onthe inputs they purchase. An analysis of VAT in Uganda, Vietnamand South Africa found that a greater number of women ownedenterprises which typically are informal enterprises, or enterprises ofsmaller size could not claim rebates of the VAT paid on their inputs.Such requirements exclude many women’s businesses and havediscriminatory implications.CEDAW, especially Articles 10, 12 and 14 which guarantee equalrights in education and in access to health care.• With regard to basic education there is an explicit prohibition on feesfor primary education in Article 13 of the International Covenant onEconomic, Social and Cultural Rights, as any user fees are seen ascontradictory with the principles of free and compulsory education.Where user fees are introduced in education and health services,girls are more likely than boys to be pulled out of school or deniedhealth care. This indicates a strong link between user fees anddiscrimination against girls.User fees on water, sanitation and electricity largely affect poorhouseholds. More specifically, user fees affect women in poorhouseholds as women are the main care providers. Therefore, thestructure of fees for water, sanitation and electricity must enablepoor women, particularly rural women, to have access to adequatebasic service levels. This can mean low fees or no fees for poorhouseholds, where necessary. Governments may also choose tosubsidize costs for poor households by charging wealthier usersmore for services. In South Africa, the National Electricity Regulatorhas a lower tariff for poorer consumers. The Governmentcharges a flat rate a month (regardless of how much electricity isconsumed) for a low-amp current, suitable for lighting, TV, radioand refrigeration. Households supplied with a current suitable forall uses are given meters, and pay a higher rate on the amountthey actually use.User fees on publicly provided services are limited and regulatedHuman rights treaties do not imply that user fees for publicservices are in themselves a violation of human rights, but theydo oblige governments to limit charges in various ways. Morebroadly human rights standards clearly indicate the obligation ofstates to ensure ‘economic accessibility’ (affordability) of rights,and the fulfillment and respect of those rights. User fees for basiceducation and health services produce outcomes that violateBUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

II. Public ExpenditureWhat are the key features of public expenditure?Government expenditure can be divided into two categories: debtservicingcharges and government programmes. The proportionthat government devotes to each category varies. For example,poor, highly indebted countries spend more money paying intereston foreign debt than they do on financing public services.The way that governments present their programme expenditurein budgets varies. For example, expenditure can be presentedaccording to administrative agency, economic function, or type ofprogramme. Typically, the types of programmes that are fundedinclude: services like education, income transfers like pensions,subsidies like food stamps, and infrastructure like roads andwater systems.Can public expenditure discriminate against women?Public expenditure can also discriminate against women bothin terms of policy and practice. Most expenditure on publicprogrammes is not gender–specific, which means that expenditureis not targeted specifically to women and girls or to menand boys. Apparently gender-neutral expenditure can havegender-differentiated benefits and fail to result in the promotionof gender equality. In some cases this may be because the lawsgoverning access to programmes discriminate against women.For instance, rules about access to income transfers from thegovernment, such as family allowances and social security, canrestrict women’s independent access. They can do so by treatingwomen as dependents of male family members rather than asindividuals in their own right - by only giving access to benefitsfor women through their husbands - or by restricting access topeople in formal employment, when the vast majority of womenare engaged in informal employment.In the case of public services and infrastructure, the problemis not discriminatory rules of access, but failures in the design,delivery and funding of programmes. Discrimination occurs whenprogrammes fail to address the social barriers that women andgirls face in accessing services; when they fail to take into accountwomen’s and girls’ different needs and priorities; and when theyfail to allocate adequate levels of funding to programmes in orderto remedy disadvantages faced by women and girls.Programmes can also be targeted at women and girls (as is permittedby CEDAW). However spending on these programmes oftenconstitutes a very small proportion- normally only between 0.5 and1 per cent -of the total government expenditure on programmes.Not all expenditures targeted to women promote gender equality,and many programmes that are not specifically targeted towomen have an equality-enhancing impact on women.How does CEDAW apply to public expenditure?CEDAW principles of substantive equality, non-discrimination,participation and modification of social and cultural patterns ofconduct, require, to varying degrees, that:Public expenditure prioritizes programmes which facilitate genderequality• Governments should prioritize funding for programmes thatincrease gender equality. There are no simple criteria for evaluatingthe extent to which a programme is likely to achieve genderequality, or the amount of funding that is necessary to achieve this.Trade–offs between immediate benefits and long term benefits alsoexist. For example, providing funding for women for courses in lowpaidand low-skilled jobs such as sewing, rather than training forwell-paid and high-skilled jobs such as computer technology, canhave immediate benefits for women, but at the same time reinforcetraditional unequal roles (this is in potential breach of Articles 3 and5 of CEDAW.) These complexities mean that it is not possible to useone uniform rule or benchmark to distinguish whether a programmeimproves women’s equality. Instead, stakeholders need to subjectprogrammes to detailed scrutiny using the criteria set out in CEDAWand to take account of the particular context of women and girls.A first step can be to systematically document public expendituretargeted at efforts to promote women’s rights and gender equality.BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

For example, France introduced a budget report on women’s rightsand equality in 2000, intended to effectively monitor and measurepublic expenditure on such efforts.Programmes funded by public expenditure are non-discriminatory• Articles 2 and 3 of CEDAW mandate government activity that is nondiscriminatoryand equality-enhancing both in design and outcomes.This focus on outcomes encourages stakeholders to assess whetherthe expenditure will in practice overcome barriers to substantiveequality. It also means that governments can support temporaryspecial measures for women-such as increased funding for creditfor women-without these measures being seen as discriminatoryagainst men.Although there is no one simple rule about how to determine whetherpublic expenditure is discriminatory or equality-enhancing, there aresome general principles that should be followed (see Box 2). Whenapplying these general principles to particular programmes, stakeholdersalso need to look to CEDAW to see whether it contains anyspecific rules on the programme under consideration. For instance,educational expenditure would be guided by Article 10 of CEDAWand public employment creation programmes must be consistentwith CEDAW Article 11.BOX 2Benchmarks for Non-discriminatory ExpenditureSeparate programmes are public services that are only availableto either sex, such as single-sex schools or hospitals. Governmentsshould spend equal amounts of money on comparable services for bothsexes unless more funds are needed for programmes for women andgirls to achieve substantive equality, including to meet needs that aresex-specific e.g. pregnancy screenings.General programmes with individual beneficiaries are thoseprogrammes that provide services to both sexes and deliver them onan individual basis, such as education, health, job creation and povertyalleviation programmes. A recommended general benchmark for theseprogrammes is that women’s share of the expenditure should be atleast the same as their share of the relevant population unless thisamount is insufficient to achieve equality. For example, inequalitiesin girls’ education means that even though girls typically constitute50 per cent of the school age population, girls’ share of educationalexpenditure will need to be more than 50 per cent to achieve substantiveequality in outcomes. Sometimes governments adopt quotas in anattempt to make expenditure distribution non-discriminatory (e.g. inSouth Africa, special public works programmes require 60 per cent ofthe employees to be women because women are 60 per cent of thetarget group). Stakeholders will need to scrutinize whether the particularquota adopted is sufficient to overcome substantive inequalities.Public goods are those programmes that go to households andcommunities where individual use of the programme is hard to identify,such as street lighting, sanitation systems, defence and policing.Because it is hard to identify individual beneficiaries, it is difficult toidentify male and female shares of expenditure. Nevertheless, womenand men often have different priorities for expenditure on public goods.For example, women often give greater priority to spending on waterand sanitation for households than do men. An alternative benchmarkto expenditure is to examine whether women’s and men’s priorities areequally met. Under this benchmark, spending on public goods will benon-discriminatory where it gives equal weight to women and men’spriorities and emphasizes priorities that further substantive equality.BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

The amount of public expenditure is adequate to achieve substantiveequality• Funding allocations may be non-discriminatory but still insufficientto achieve substantive equality. For example, analysis of theadequacy of the budget for the implementation of the DomesticViolence Acts passed in South Africa, Barbados and seven LatinAmerican countries, showed that there were no cases of adequateappropriation in the national budget for domestic violenceprogrammes and interventions. In order to comply with CEDAW,public expenditure must be both non-discriminatory and adequateto achieve the rights that CEDAW guarantees.Stakeholders should work together to determine exactly howmuch money is needed to fund the activities necessary to achievewomen’s equality. To do this, they will need to first agree whatthe outcomes of spending should be and then investigate whatmeasures will best achieve these outcomes and how much thesemeasures will cost. One way that stakeholders can assess theadequacy of expenditure allocations is to draw on the methodsfor cost-estimation of services developed by the U.N. MillenniumProject (e.g. by referring to the costs of services required to achieveMillennium Development Goal 3, Gender Equality and Women’sEmpowerment). These costs will then need to be compared withthe amount of money the budget has allocated to spend on aparticular issue, such as reducing domestic violence.If the analysis shows that the funding is inadequate, thenadditional resources will need to be found (e.g. by redistributingfunding or increasing tax revenue) in ways that complywith CEDAW. While this is ultimately the responsibility ofgovernment, civil society budget monitoring activities that canboth identify inadequacies and make concrete proposals abouthow to acquire the additional resources are particularly helpful.For example, the Gender Advocacy Programme, an NGO basedin Cape Town, identified shortfalls in funding the implementationof the Domestic Violence Act in South Africa and also went on toidentify how changes in priorities and improvements in efficiencycould free up resources for the Act’s proper implementation.A key challenge is to make sure that in determining what isadequate funding, proper account is taken of the role ofwomen’s unpaid work. Taking proper account means recognizingthat women’s unpaid work is often a hidden subsidy of publicprogrammes. For example, gender analysis of a food assistanceprogramme in Villa El Salvador, Peru showed that reliance on theunpaid work of women to distribute food saved the municipality asum equal to 20 per cent of the programme’s budget. Unpaid workthat is genuinely voluntary and contributed by women who havespare time is not in violation of CEDAW. However, there is causefor concern if poor overworked women are required to contributeunpaid work in order to access public programmes. Care must betaken to ensure that this sort of reliance on unpaid work does notbecome a discriminatory substitute for adequate funding.Finally, stakeholders might consider whether it is helpful to introducequantitative funding quotas to ensure adequate resourcesfor women. Some GBIs have advocated for the adoption of suchquotas. For example, a GBI organized by an NGO, the Women’sPolitical Coordinating Organization, in Quito, Ecuador, argued thatat least 30 per cent of the beneficiaries of municipal projects shouldbe women and that 30 per cent of municipal contracts should goto women. As with government quotas for funding distribution,stakeholders will need to assess what quota is needed to ensureadequate expenditure.Public expenditure facilitates substantive equality in its impact• In allocating adequate funds, governments fulfil what is called their“obligation of conduct”. The obligation to advance gender equalityin Article 3 of CEDAW also includes an “obligation of result”,by which spending must have an actual impact on transformingwomen’s status. It is important to emphasize this because a biggap often exists between what is meant to happen and what actuallyhappens in budgeting. For example, an investigation into theimpact of public expenditure allocated to Gender and Developmentprogrammes in the Philippines found that expenditure itemshad no clear gender equality focus and that there was a lackmonitoring systems.BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

There are three main ways to assess impact of government spending.1. Expenditure tracking studies to ensure that money does reachits intended point of service delivery.2. Beneficiary assessments to determine whether women receiveservices in ways that respect their human rights.3. Quantitative investigation, by which budget outcomes aremeasured using sex-disaggregated indicators such as femaleand male literacy rates.Some GBIs have focused on investigating budget outcomes. Forexample, in Mexico, the NGOs Fundar, Foro and Equidad de Generoinvestigated the impact of expenditure on maternal mortality ratesin Chiapas and Oaxaca.The outcome of budget expenditures is CEDAW-compliant whenit can be shown that funds reached the point of service delivery,that intended beneficiaries were satisfied, and that the position ofwomen was improved.Public expenditure reform programmes promote gender equality• This means that if reforms, such as performance-oriented budgeting,decentralization, more targeted spending and privatization areintroduced, they must be carried out in a way that not only counteractsthe potential negative effects of reforms for women, but turnsthese into opportunities for advancing their position. Only reformsthat meet these criteria should be introduced.For example, in performance-oriented budgeting, gender equalityshould be one of the criteria that a budget’s performance ismeasured by. In decentralization processes, the capacity of womenshould be built to participate equally in decision-making about theallocation of resources. Although narrow targeting of spendingconcentrates scarce resources on derived groups, it may also havehidden costs, such as costs of administration and of documentingeligibility, as well as costs of mis-targeting. In general publicprogrammes with universal access are more likely to promotegender equality. Privatization reforms must ensure that womendo not lose access to services because they cannot afford to payfor them.10BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

III. Macroeconomics of the BudgetWhat are the key features of macroeconomicsof the budget?The macroeconomics of the budget refer to the impact of thebudget on the economy as a whole, including how it affectsfactors such as the level of employment, growth and changesin the average level of prices for goods and services (inflation ordeflation).Much of the debate around macroeconomic policy concentrateson how government budgets can best contribute to an overallimprovement in the nation’s economy. Many countries favor amacroeconomic policy that prioritizes increasing Gross NationalProduct (GNP) and keeping inflation rates low by reducing budgetdeficits, mainly through expenditure cuts rather than increasedtax revenue. This deflationary bias in turn may bring down thelevels of job creation. Since the early 1980s, these policies havesuccessfully reduced inflation to below ten per cent in mostregions of the world, but have not managed to achieve adequatelevels of growth and employment to support populations. Thealternate position in this debate argues that the narrow focus ononly lowering inflation is mistaken and that objectives relating tojob creation and growth need to be given equal priority.Can the macroeconomic policy discriminateagainst women?The debate on macroeconomic strategy rarely examines andprioritizes the gender dimensions of macroeconomic policy.Macroeconomic policy can discriminate against women by adoptingpolicies that perpetuate women’s inequality in labour marketsand require women to carry an unequal burden of the costs ofadjustment to recession, high rates of inflation, and financialcrises. Deflationary bias perpetuates and deepens tendenciesfor women to have higher unemployment rates than men; tohave lower labour force participation rates than men; and to beconcentrated in low-paid informal jobs which lack rights to socialprotection. This perpetuates and heightens women’s obligationsto act as the safety net for their families and communities.Deflationary bias is entrenched in many countries by rules that setstrict limits on budget deficits and government debt, irrespectiveof whether the economy is in recession, has high unemploymentrates and falling output, or in a boom period with low rates ofunemployment at fast growth of output. These rules have hada negative impact on women as they have: narrowed the “fiscalspace” in which governments can address women’s needs; slowedgrowth; and increased unemployment and informal employment.In addition, budget deficits have generally been reduced bycutting expenditure rather than by raising tax revenue, with womenbearing the disproportionate burden of expenditure cuts.Women normally bear this disproportionate burden becausecuts are often made to women’s programmes or to programmesin which women are the main beneficiaries (see Box 3). Thesecuts take place over the course of the budget cycle and wouldnot be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. For example, a studyof data covering an eleven-year period in Jamaica, found thatafter the budget had been approved, political factors during theimplementation phase led to greater expenditure cuts in socialand community services than in economic services. Social andcommunity services were particularly important for poor women,whereas economic services benefited businesses. The risk thatwomen will disproportionately experience the impact of expenditurecuts is also heightened because of the social pressure forwomen to compensate for service cuts with their unpaid work(for example by undertaking increased water collection activitiesif the government cuts expenditure on water and sanitation).How does CEDAW apply to macroeconomic policies?CEDAW principles of substantive equality, non-discrimination,participation and modification of social and cultural patterns ofconduct, require, to varying degrees, that:11BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

Macroeconomic policy promote measures that will end discriminationagainst women and ensure their equality• Analyzing macroeconomic policy from a gender perspective meansassessing which macroeconomic policies are most conduciveto women’s full development and advancement. For example,evidence suggests that macroeconomic policy which prioritizesboth high tax and high public expenditure reduces gender inequality,for instance, by increasing public services that reduce women’sunpaid work and enable them to join or continue to engage inthe paid labor market. As well as evaluating their own domesticmacroeconomic policy, governments should also consider cancelingthe debt owed by poor countries to enable them to increaseexpenditure aimed at enhancing gender equality, for instance, byfunding education for girls.Macroeconomic policy guarantees women’s right to work on anequal basis with men• In addition to the general requirements of substantive equality(Article 3) and non-discrimination (Article 2), CEDAW also hassome specific implications for the design and implementation ofmacroeconomic policies. For example, governments are requiredto use macroeconomic policy to guarantee women’s right to workon an equal basis with men (Article 11). This obligation includesreducing gender differences in unemployment rates, ensuring equalpay for equal work, ensuring women and men enjoy equal levelsof “decent” employment, and creating incentives for equal sharingof unpaid domestic work. A first step to fulfilling this obligation isfor governments to collect employment and unemployment data inways that take full account of women’s experiences. For instance,definitions of unemployment often exclude people who want a jobbut do not actively seek one because they feel none are available,or because they face a variety of physical or social barriers inobtaining a job. These so-called ‘discouraged workers’ are morelikely to be women. During periods of high unemployment, womenworkers are more likely than men to drop out of the labour forcealtogether. Moreover, when unemployment increases and incomelevels fall, women bear the burden of substituting unpaid domesticgoods and services for those that the family can no longer affordto buy on the market. To measure the latter stakeholders shouldconduct time use surveys.Expenditure cuts do not disproportionately impact women• CEDAW, when read with other international instruments suchas the ICESCR, also requires that reductions in budget deficitsthrough expenditure cuts do not have a disproportionate impacton women. Under the principle of “non-retrogression”, the governmentis required to provide a justification for any expenditurecuts. However, the obligation of non-discrimination rules out thepossibility of justifying a cut that has an unequal or discriminatoryeffect on women. Women and girls often have the socialobligation to produce substitutes for goods and services formerlyprovided by the state. In light of this, expenditure cuts may affectwomen disproportionately.To preemptively guard against the risk that women will bear thedisproportionate burden of expenditure cuts, governments shouldclosely scrutinize proposed expenditure cuts, for instance, byconsulting civil society organizations, particularly those thatrepresent women from the most marginalized groups. Civil societyorganizations can make an important contribution by monitoringexpenditure to identify trends in expenditures that are disadvantageousto women (see Box 3).Macroeconomic policy is designed with careful considerationof all alternatives from a gender perspective and in ways that maximize flexibility to comply with CEDAW• The type of macroeconomic policy is often, and should be, determinedthrough careful consideration of all alternative macroeconomicpolicies. Even after a macroeconomic policy direction hasbeen chosen, it is important for governments to retain some roomfor flexibility in their decision-making to respond to changes insocietal patterns. Indeed, gendered patterns of work, expenditure,consumption and investment may shift over time and governmentsalways need to have the ability to adjust practices to continue12BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

to address women’s needs and comply with their obligations,including those under CEDAW. One way in which governments canmaintain this flexibility is to adopt flexible budget rules that enablethem to balance budgets over the economic cycle (normally fourto eight years) rather than each year. For example, governmentssuch as the United Kingdom have budget rules that make it possibleto adopt what is known as an “anti-cyclical” fiscal policy. Thismeans that governments spend more money than revenue in thedownswing of the cycle and offset this by spending less moneythan what they raise in the upswing of the cycle.To best enable governments to keep track of the changes thatmacroeconomic policy needs to address governments shouldcreate conditions for widespread dialogue and input on macroeconomicstrategy. Civil society can play a critical role here andcan contribute to the formulation of alternative macroeconomicpolicies by producing an alternative budget. This is what happens,for example, in Canada, where every year since 1995, 50 civilsociety organizations have created an Alternative Federal Budget(AFB). The AFB has proposed different strategies for reducing thebudget deficit without having to cut expenditure and has recommendedthat budget surplus be used to restore social programmesrather than give tax cuts and reduce outstanding debt.BOX 3Scrutiny of Expenditure Cuts:Examples from Mexico and NepalMexico GBIIn 1998-2000, the Mexican Ministry of Finance announced expenditurecuts that would affect the National Electricity Commission, the stateownedoil company (PEMEX), and the Department of Communicationand Transport. Further cuts were made in 2002 affecting the budgets ofthe Ministries of Health and Education, and the Social Security Institute.The budgets of the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of theNavy and the Ministry of Public Security were not cut.Scrutiny by civil society organizations revealed that cuts in 1998-2000had actually affected the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry ofHealth and the Ministry of Education. Furthermore, the 2002 cuts, whilstnot directed at women-specific programmes, affected anti-povertyprogrammes of which women were the main beneficiaries.In response to these findings, the Commission on Gender Equality ofthe Chamber of Deputies became active in negotiations on the 2003budget and succeeded in getting larger appropriations than originallyproposed by the government for programmes on reproductive health,reduction of maternal mortality, women in agriculture and immigrantwomen.Gender Budget Audit, NepalIn 2003, the Institute for Integrated Development Studies carried out aGender Budget Audit that looked at trends in social expenditure (education,health, drinking water and local development) compared to totalexpenditure in Nepal It found that cuts impacted more heavily on socialexpenditure than on total expenditure. The audit also looked at anothertype of expenditure that affects women: expenditure on subsidies. Itfound that subsidies that particularly affected poor women (such asfood and fertilizer subsidies) were cut, whilst others that were importantfor politicians (such as media subsidies) were kept.13BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

IV. Budget ProcessWhat are the key featuresof budget decision-making processes?The budget process consists of four stages: formulation of thebudget; setting out expected revenue and planned expenditure;consideration and adoption of the budget by members of thelegislature and its enactment into law; budget implementation; andbudget audit and evaluation which checks that funds are spent asauthorized and evaluates overall government performanceEach of the four stages of the budget decision-making processinvolves a variety of actors from government and civil society (seeBox 4). Government is the key actor in budget decision-makingand its executive and legislative parts each play different rolesdepending on the stage of the process. In addition to governmentactors, the last decade has seen an increase in civil societyparticipation in budget decision-making. For example, in Brazil,individuals in over 100 municipalities have been involved in theparticipatory budget process originally developed by the Partidodos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) in Porto Alegre. Participatorybudgeting can take place at different phases of the budget cycleand at all levels of government. The precise nature of participationis dependent on factors such as political will of government andthe capacity of civil society. The relationship between governmentand civil society ranges from joint-decision making (as inthe Porto Alegre process) to consultation (e.g. when civil societycontributes to Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) whichare key sources of information for budget formulation in developingcountries which seek to borrow from the World Bank). Therelationship maybe influenced by other powerful actors (such asthe International Monetary Fund and the World Bank).Can budget decision processesdiscriminate against women?Not all individuals have the same opportunities to contribute tobudget processes. Women are consistently under-representedin government agencies that formulate, approve, and implementgovernment budgets as well as in civil society groups that implementand evaluate government budgets. Women in governmenttend to be assigned to “soft” or “social” parliamentary committeesand portfolios (such as Ministries of Family Affairs and Women’sAffairs) and tend to be excluded from ministries (such as Ministryof Finance) where key budget decisions are made.Even when women are present in these forums their involvementmay be limited. The difficulties elected women representatives(EWRs) face are highlighted by a research project carried out bythe Karnataka Women’s Information and Resource Center (KWIRC)in India. This project examined the role of EWRs in the determinationof the budgets of two village- and municipal councils.The project found that as a result of gender discrimination andcultural norms women representatives were frequently excludedfrom budget discussions, denied access to relevant budgetdocuments and financial statements, lacked detailed informationabout the budget, and had their funding requests de-prioritizedin comparison with requests made by male representatives.Access to information is also a key concern for women in civilsociety groups. In addition to problems in accessing governmentinformation, an even greater issue is that governments themselvesdo not often produce the sex-disaggregated data that isneeded for a true picture of the gender implications of budgetsto emerge.14BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

BOX 4Opportunities for Women’s Civil SocietyInvolvement in Budget Decision Making ProcessesFormulation: In this phase, the budget is prepared by relevant bodies inthe executive. The process is normally led by the Budget Office of theMinistry of Finance (or comparable body). There is a large degree ofcontinuity from year to year. Nevertheless, policy decisions have to betaken on what to continue and what to change. Women in civil societycan influence these choices by: proposing projects based on women’sneeds and priorities; developing alternative budgets that set out differentspending priorities for women; and participating in the developmentof PRSPs.Approval and Enactment into Law: In this phase, the budget is analyzedby the legislature and brought into effect through the passing of a budgetlaw. The extent to which members of the legislature can modify thebudget proposal varies. The approach of civil society will depend on howmuch flexibility there is for the legislature to bring about budget change.Civil society activities at this stage of the process include providing thelegislature with information about the likely impact of budget proposalson women as compared to men.Implementation: Implementation is undertaken by Ministers, administratorsand all relevant public sector employees. Civil society can play acrucial role in this phase by tracking whether allocated resources actuallyreach the intended recipients of the government programme.Audit and Evaluation: In this phase bodies such as the Office of the Auditor-Generalinvestigate whether government expenditure was authorized;determine whether the government accounts are accurate; and report tothe legislature (often to a Public Accounts Committee) on their findings.Increasingly, in addition to financial audits, evaluations are carried out toassess what has been achieved with the spending. Civil society can play arole at this stage by conducting its own audits and evaluations on whetherprogrammes perform in a way that advances gender equality. Tools includeproducing “report cards” or surveys to find out women’s experiences ofgovernment programmes.There have been some advances in women’s participationin budget processes. GBIs have made it a priority to monitorwomen’s presence in government and civil society groups, andan increasing number of countries have adopted temporaryspecial measures, such as quotas, to ensure more womenare represented in the budget decision-making bodies. ManyGBIs have also focused on building the capacity of women tocontribute to budgets once they are in these positions. Forexample, in West Bengal and Rajasthan, women, who have beenempowered to effectively contribute to budget processes, haveplayed a role in advocating for improvements in governmentspending on women’s priorities (for example through increasedallocations of resources to water and sanitation).How does CEDAW apply to budgetdecision-making processes?CEDAW principles of substantive equality, non-discrimination,participation and modification of social and cultural patternsof conduct, require, to varying degrees, that:Women participate on equal terms with men in budget decisionmakingprocesses• As outlined above, Article 7 of CEDAW requires measures to eliminatediscrimination in political and public life, and particularly, toensure that women have the right, on equal terms with men, toparticipate in the formulation and implementation of governmentpolicy, to hold public office, and to participate in non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs). In the area of budgets, ensuring participationon equal terms with men means removing formal barriers toparticipation in budget processes. Examples of formal barriersmay be laws prohibiting women from being in elections and takingfurther steps to ensure that women enjoy full or substantive equalityin decision processes. This obligation applies to all women – itis not just privileged women’s groups (e.g. wealthy urban women)that are entitled to voice their opinion on how money should beraised and spent. In concrete terms, the requirement to ensure15BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

participation on equal terms implies both increasing the number ofwomen in relevant government and civil society groups, and alsoincreasing the capacity of women in these positions to engage withthe budget decision process.Number of women in decision-making rolesThe first step in deciding what measures are needed to increasewomen’s presence is to identify the number of women involved atdifferent stages of the budget making process and the importanceof their position. This is necessary because women are oftenwell represented in less influential bodies at the local level, butare a minority in more influential bodies at the local, regional, ornational levels.Once this information is collected, measures that governments maybe required to adopt include:––Introduction of temporary special measures to increase thenumber of women in elected bodies. The CEDAW Committee hasrecommended quotas for this purpose and supports the interimgoal that women hold 30 to 35 percent of positions. Specialmeasures may also be needed to increase the number of womenin civil society organisations. For example, some states in Indiahave introduced rules about the proportion of women that incommunity assemblies that deal with budgets. CEDAW requiresthat these measures stay in effect until their outcomes have beenachieved and it is clear that their benefits will continue.Increasing the role of national women’s machinery in budget decisionprocesses. For example, since 2002, the National Women’sMachinery in Chile (Servicio Nacional de la Mujer-SERNAM),has worked with the Budget Office in the Ministry of Financeto mainstream gender into government spending practices. Thisinvolves evaluating whether public expenditure advances genderequality and certifying that departments have taken gender intoaccount in allocating expenditure. This certification is important;failure to do so results in the loss of a two per cent salary bonusfor employees of the relevant Department.–Enhancing the possibilities for women’s groups in civil society toset priorities for expenditure. It is important that these possibilitiesare open for all types of expenditure, not just those earmarkedfor women’s issues. For example, in Kerala, India, all-womengroups set priorities about how the Women’s Development Fundwill be spent. However, this Fund only represents ten percent ofthe budget. Women do not contribute equally to decisions abouthow to use the majority of budget resources.Capacity of women decision-makersCEDAW requires more than just increasing the number of women ingovernment and civil society. It also requires that women’s voicesbe equally heard once they are in these positions. This in turn callsfor measures that build the capacity of elected representativesand civil society to analyze budgets, particularly from a genderperspective. For example, in Mexico, an NGO, Equidad de Genero,holds public finance workshops for women leaders. In India, theKarnataka Women’s Information and Resource Centre (KWIRC) hascommenced a project with poor and often illiterate local EWRs toenable them to construct budgets. The GBI in Uganda (organizedby the Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) and womenmembers of parliament) has used government sources and otherinformation to produce a series of short briefing papers that helpwomen parliamentarians undertake gender analysis of budgets.Reform of budget decision-making processes ensure that womenparticipate on equal terms with men and that budget decisionsincorporate a gender perspective• This requirement stems from Article 7 and the requirement forsubstantive equality (Article 3) and calls for the restructuring ofdecision processes to overcome the inbuilt factors that preventwomen from enjoying full and equal participation. These factorsfall generally into two categories: lack of transparency, and lack ofaccountability. These two areas have been a particular focus ofGBIs in the Andean region (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru).16BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

Steps that governments can take to ensure that budget processesare more open and transparent include ensuring that budgetscontain all relevant information (including the distributionalimplications of the budget) and that budgets are presented in auser-friendly way.Accountability reforms include those which ensure: the right toinformation (particularly sex-disaggregated information), the rightto contribute meaningfully to budget deliberations, and the rightto redress where budget guarantees are not properly fulfilled(such as when service delivery is inadequate). Where there areproblems in collecting sex-disaggregated information, governmentsmay consider introducing a law mandating such collection.Civil society can assist in promoting this option. For example, inOaxaca, the Institute for Oaxacan Women successfully lobbied theGovernor to pass a law that requires the government to producesex-disaggregated information. To enable civil society to use thisinformation, stakeholders can advocate measures such as theparticipatory auditing developed by the Mazdoor Kisan ShakthiSangathan in Rajasthan, where budget accounts are presentedat public hearings and villagers can identify instances of misappropriationand corruption. To ensure accountability, suchmechanisms must include a way for individuals to get redress if aproblem is found. All stakeholders must test whether barriers toimplementing this right to redress (for example fear of intimidation,difficulties for poor women in having their complaints heard) havebeen truly overcome, and the opportunities for ensuring women’srights maximized.17BUDGETING FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS - MONITORING GOVERNMENT BUDGETS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH CEDAW

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