The gender budget advocacy has been done for nearly five years by NGOs in Indonesia. The gender budget advocacy has been implemented in 2011 by several NGOs which are the members of Gender Budget Analysis Forum which works at national level and local level with its forum members who work locally. At the national level, this forum conducts gender budget advocacy by urging the MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly) to allocate 15% budget for education, 15% for health, and 5% for women empowerment from the State Budget (MPR Decree No.6/2002). At the local level, this forum encourages local government to formulate gender budget like in Sumatera Barat where the forum, in collaboration with the local government and local parliament, analyzed the impacts of state budget implementation for men, women, and female teenagers.

 

This advocacy has encouraged the government to issue several policies on gender mainstreaming in the attempt to alleviate poverty in Indonesia. One of the attempts is done through implementing the formulation of gender budget which is strengthened by the Decree of the Home Affairs Minister No.132 of 2003. Gender budget is a tool to build gender equality, balance, and equity. The implementation of gender budget is necessary along with the issuance of gender mainstreaming policies.

 

When looking at the policies to encourage gender budget, it becomes clear that gender budget is a strategic program to encourage the implementation of gender budget nationally and locally. However, the implementation of regulation to implement gender budget is still far from what is expected. We can also see that in some places, gender budget is distorted or even is not implemented. Also, the capacity of gender budget advocates is still weak, and very often they work with their own agendas. From the study on the impacts of gender budget and the capacity of gender budget advocates, we can see the failure and success of the inclusive governance and citizen engagement in improving the welfare of the marginalized groups especially women.

 

From the assessment of the impacts of gender budget and the capacity of gender budget advocates, we can see that conducting workshop and FGD on the Assessment of the Need of Capacity Enhancement is important. The workshop and FGD are aimed at conducting participatory assessment of field officers and obtaining inputs from the participants. The Workshop and FGD are also directed to see the impacts and benefits gained from gender budget advocacy.

 

Goals:

1. To conduct participative assessment of field officers and gain inputs.
2. To see the benefits that have been gained from the gender budget advocacy.
3. To improve the model for strategy development in the development and strengthening of institutions involved in gender budget advocacy. 

 

The focused discussion on gender budget was held in Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta. This discussion was attended by budget advocates coming from Gunung Kidul’s executive body, women organization, civil society, and local NGOs. This FGD was attended by 39. Among the participants were:

1. Vice Regent of Gunung Kidul (Badingah)
2. IDEA (Aan)
3. Department of Demography (Sumiyati)
4. Fatayar NU
5. Social and People’s Empowerment Agency
6. Education Agency
7. Economy Agency
8. Regional Development Agency
9. IPPNU
10. Organization of Women Entrepreneurs
11. IRE
12. Civil Society
13. Amorisa Wiratri (WRI’s Researcher)
14. Aris Arif Mundayat (WRI’s Researcher)

 

Discussion Process

 

The discussion was held in a dynamic and friendly way. It was led by a representative of Regional Development Agency and was facilitated by Sita Aripurnami and Edriana Noerdin from Women Research Institute.

 

The participants from the government bodies generally had good understanding of gender. They understood the gender construction which places women in disadvantaged position. There was a concern from the female participants (from government bodies) about the values of feminism in which they questioned whether the values will motivate women to be the same with men in all fields including in labor jobs. 

 

In terms of the understanding of gender budget, the participants understood that there should be a special budget allocated for women’s needs, for example special budget for reproductive health and education which is aimed at enabling women to access higher education. In Gunung Kidul, the school duration of women in average is still very low.

 

From this focused discussion, we gained inputs from gender budget advocates. From these inputs, we can see and asses the participants’ understanding and the efforts that they have taken. The inputs will be used to improve the development strategy module and strengthen institutions that advocate gender budget.

 

The presence of the Vice Regent of Gunung Kidul, Badingah, made the discussion more interesting. Her presence motivated the participants to be more energetic in joining the discussion and expressing the problems that they face in relation to their attempts in advocating a more equal budget. It turned out that Badingah had a good understanding of the need to formulate gender budget. Badinah herself responded the complaints from the participant regarding the difficulty in accessing funding aid for education. She firmly stated that she would respond by incorporating gender budget in the program agenda and seeking for concrete budget allocation to answer the existing problems.

 

Achievements:

1. The focused discussion was accomplished.
2. The inputs gained from gender budget advocates.
3. There should be an understanding and awareness from all elements of society of the importance of gender budget and gender budget planning.
4. There should be women’s access and participation in the making of policy.
5. There should be an understanding of adolescents.
6. There is a need for women’s understanding and awareness of gender.
7. There is a need to invite more people to join future discussion.
8. There should be communication and network between CSO to advocate gender budget. ***

 

Related Article:

Study of the Impacts of Gender Budget