From Rhetoric to Action: Empowering Women Through Gender-Responsive Budgeting

This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress,” underscores the importance of promoting gender equality and reminds us that we still have a long way to go.

Only 15% of the 14 SDG 5 indicators with data are currently “on track” to achieve “gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls” by 2030. Programs dedicated to gender equality and women empowerment are decreasing, receiving no more than 4% of total bilateral aid in 2023 (pdf). On top of all that, rising prices and conflicts are leading to severe austerity measures that could prevent women, in particular, from accessing essential services.  In fact, by 2025, some 75% of countries are likely to cut public spending just to stay financially afloat. 

This brings up an important question: How, amidst growing global challenges and unfavorable fiscal trends, can governments feasibly and credibly support investments in women to accelerate progress toward SDG 5? 

Gender-responsive budgeting: An old concept that requires a fresh look

The Women’s Day theme highlights five areas that require collective action to accelerate progress. Key among these is implementing gender-responsive financing. Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) entails creating budgets that work for everyone by considering and analyzing the unique needs of different members of society to ensure a fair distribution of resources. 

However, despite their potential to drive positive change, GRB initiatives often get overlooked during budget reforms. Sometimes, the approach taken is too narrow or overly technical and fails to consider broader governance actions or fiscal policy solutions required to address deep-rooted gender disparities. For instance, while tools such as gender impact assessments and expenditure tagging are handy, they cannot replace deliberate policy actions and budgeted projects aimed at fixing persistent issues such as gender-based violence (GBV). Shockingly 1 in 3 women still experience GBV in their lifetime. 

Reimaging Public Finance

At the World Bank, we are currently rethinking public finance and its role in driving development outcomes by investigating the impact of budgeting on accelerating gender equality and social inclusion.  The key findings so far tell us that Finance Ministries can play a decisive role in this regard by doing the following:

1.    Prioritizing funding for gender-related initiatives that close gender gaps, when feasible. Initiatives without budgetary backing are like seeds without soil – they may sprout, but they'll never flourish .

2.    Using the core functions of national budgets to promote change and support gender actions. Here are a few examples of practical steps Finance Ministries can take:

Planning & Coordination

•    Encourage collective action and build political consensus by exercising convening power during budget preparation. 

•    Use tools like medium-term budget frameworks and the budget circular to identify gender actions and promote policy consistency. 

Control

•    Leverage audit and control functions to monitor spending and ensure that money is being spent in accordance with gender strategies and plans. 

•    Protect budget releases and hold joint review meetings to make sure that gender actions are being effectively implemented.

•    Open communication is key! Budget officials can build trust and facilitate public scrutiny by transparently sharing gender-related budget priorities, goals, and trade-offs and encouraging public participation in budget decision-making processes.

Motivation

•    Lead by example, making gender a focal point of the budget or advocating for methods to do so. 

•    Apply fiscal incentives to promote inclusive behaviors and practices while discouraging discrimination. For example, providing incentives for childcare services can encourage greater female labor force participation by freeing women from unpaid home duties.

•    Last but not least, Finance Ministries can leverage their purchasing power through public procurement to enable women-led small and medium-sized enterprises to encourage economic empowerment.

3.    Ensuring that budgeting does not hinder efforts to close gender gaps. Common challenges include (i) competing priorities that make it challenging to garner support, (ii) lack of consensus on strategic policy options, and (iii) bottlenecks in the public financial management system that impede the implementation of policies targeting investments in women. 

These challenges highlight a pressing need to consider not only what actions to take,but how those actions are taken and the governing institutional arrangements. The simple five-step process in the image below could be used to guide the development of an action plan to effectively drive gender actions through the budget.

By prioritizing gender-responsive budgeting and taking practical steps to integrate gender actions into budget processes, governments can translate rhetoric into action, driving meaningful change for women and girls worldwide . The time to invest in women and accelerate progress is now.