Debbie Budlender and Rhonda Sharp are among the pioneers in research on the importance of gender issues in drawing up a budget. She has developed a number of papers that carry the issues, including a paper entitled How to do a Gender-Sensitive Budget Analysis: Contemporary Research and Practice she wrote together with Rhonda Sharp and Kerri Allen. The paper was published by Australian Agency for International Development; Commonwealth Secretariat, Canberra in 1998. Her own writings are including Budgeting to Fulfil International Gender and Human Rights Commitments, that was published by the United Nations Development Fund for Women in 2004 and Gender Responsive Budgeting: Manual for Trainers, that was published by United Nations Development Programme in 2004.

Debbie Budlender visited WRI’s office to learn about the implementation of the Gender Budget program in Indonesia and to discuss a research program, entitled Women and Politics in the Regional Autonomy Era in Indonesia, that is expected to be conducted by WRI in collaboration with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. Debbie Budlender serves as a consultant for WRI for the research program. ***

Ms Deborah Jean “Debbie” Budlender
Council member: University of Cape Town
Specialist researcher: Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE)