Why gender budgeting needs to be present in COVID-19 policy responses

This post was written by Aylén Rodríguez Ferrari, social protection and jobs consultant at the World Bank.

• **The problem: **During the COVID-19 crisis, countries adopted urgent policies that impacted women’s and men's lives differently, reverting many gender equality improvements and even increasing gender gaps.
• **Why it matters: **Governments have the mandate to promote gender equality through allocating resources efficiently. They need to understand whether and how fiscal policies reduce, increase gender inequality, or maintain the status quo.
• **The solution: **Integrate gender budgeting in all the stages of the budgetary process is key to promoting gender equality, avoiding unintended effects, and complying with gender commitment.

The COVID-19 crisis impacted women disproportionately. Globally, feminised sectors and dynamics were hit the hardest; still, government responses did not pay attention enough to these differences and failed to mitigate adverse effects on gender equality. The UN’s COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker reports that 226 governments adopted 4,968 policies to respond to the pandemic. Of these, only 1,605 policies were gender-sensitive and focused on violence against women and girls, women’s economic security, and unpaid care work. As the evidence shows, those policies helped face some pandemic constraints but were not enough to prevent a backlash in gender equality achievements.

Gender Budgeting is not a brand-new concept. It was first developed in the 1980s

Gender Budgeting (GB) is a policy strategy that promotes gender equality by incorporating a gender perspective in all stages of the budgetary process. This should not be confused with creating separate budgets for women. In practice, it entails conducting a gender budget analysis to identify gender gaps and challenges, formulate objectives and define indicators for measuring progress. Based on that information, policymakers can improve the budget allocation and revenue collection toward gender equality. Through regular monitoring and impact evaluations, they can get valuable inputs to design and implement efficient planning and budgeting cycles. Thus, it is a convenient tool for an evidence-based decision-making process.

By implementing a GB approach, policymakers recognise that fiscal policies impact women’s and men’s lives in their diversity differently and can be aware of whether intended or existing policies reduce or increase gender inequality or maintain the status quo. Hence, GB helps increase our knowledge about the distributional effects of resource allocations; therefore, it is also a mechanism to hold governments accountable for their gender policy commitments.

Why Gender Budgeting matters

Most of the policy responses to the pandemic were designed and implemented without a GB approach. Gender Budgeting is not a brand-new concept. It was first developed in the 1980s in Australia and put on the international agenda by the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action. Recently, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), indicator 5.c.1, called for resources and tools to track budget allocations for gender equality. Despite all that, the IMF reveals that too few countries integrate a gender perspective into their budget design and execution.

Countries report technical challenges when adopting the GB approach, such as lack of guidance, coordination, and training in data collection and gender analysis. We can resolve all of these with investments in technical assistance. The engagement of the ministry of finance is essential, too, as the government body that makes decisions about resource allocation. In addition, solid political support, a legislative framework, and the country’s cultural attitudes and social norms are determinant factors for expanding Gender Budgeting.

The COVID-19 crisis created a window of opportunity to reignite the discussion on investing more and better in GB as an adequate strategy for the recovery. There cannot be an economic and social recovery without policies that pay attention to gender inequalities. Gender Budgeting addresses them and contributes to increased growth and poverty reduction, maximising the impact of public expenditures.