Backgrounds of Gender Budget

The government has expressed its alignments to achieve gender equity and equality by issuing gender mainstreaming policy for all of its work programs (Presidential Instruction No.9/2000). However, gap between policies in favor of gender equality and ways taken by the government in allocating and spending its budget can still be seen.

The government, in conducting its programs and activities, needs funding as expressed in the local government budget (APBD) and state budget (APBN). The commitment from the government to conduct gender mainstreaming in all of its work programs should result in gender-responsive APBN and APBD, which means:

The use of APBN and APBD for people’s welfare should always take into account justice and equality values based on non-discriminative relationship patterns in relation to social class, religion, cultural group, ethnic group, and sex.

 

Gender Mainstreaming

According to Presidential Instruction No.9/2000, gender mainstreaming is:

• A process which includes gender analysis into work programs and all activities conducted by government institutions and other social organizations starting from the stage of programs planning, programs implementation, until programs monitoring and evaluation. 
• Gender mainstreaming is one of the development strategies done by integrating the experience, aspiration, and need and interest of men and women with the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all policies, programs, projects and activities in various aspects of life and development. 

 

Objectives of Gender Mainstreaming

Ensuring that men and women get the access to, participate in, have control over, and get equal benefit from development.

 

Why Gender Mainstreaming Matters

• To identify whether men and women get equal access to development resources.
• To identify if men and women share equal opportunity to participate in the process of development, particularly in decision making process.
• To identify whether men and women have equal control over development resources.
• To identify if men and women benefit equally from development results.

Gender Equity and Equality Indicators

• Human Development Indicators 
Human life standard indicators which measure gender gap by looking at:  

• Life expectancy
• Maternal and infant mortality rate
• Level of education by looking at access to basic education and high education, literacy rate, and average duration of education
• Income rate

• Gender Development Indicators
Development Index which is related to:

• The number of female policy makers such as: female senior bureaucrat and manager and member of People’s Representative Council (DPR)/Regional Representative Council (DPRD) and People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR).

• Gender Empowerment Indicators
Gender Empowerment Indicators include:

• Condition of women’s political empowerment
• Condition of women’s social empowerment
• Condition of women’s cultural empowerment

Requirements of Gender Budget

• Gender budget always utilizes gender analysis in all stages of planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the budget.
• Effective gender budget is always developed based on interactive consultation process between people, both men and women, executives, and legislators.
• Gender budget should express the needs of women.

In the attempt to meet the three criteria, we first need to understand:

• Gender concept
• Concepts and requirements in drafting gender budget
• Legal frameworks of gender equity and equality
• The rights to get involved in the drafting of budget in all stages of planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating.
• The cycle of local budget management. 

Objectives of Gender Budget

• To strengthen people’s position in economic policy making process.
• To measure commitment of the government in implementing gender mainstreaming policy.
• To integrate gender mainstreaming into the analysis and policy of macro economy.
• To increase budget allocation for women, especially poor women who, so far, have not benefitted much from the budget allocation.
•  For example, increasing budget to:
• reduce maternal mortality.
• increase basic health and reproductive care for women and children.
• reduce the number of people who become infected with HIV/AIDS and control HIV/AIDS transmission
• reduce female illiteracy rate
• conduct dissemination of anti-violence against women 
• provide assistance for victims of violence against women
• etc.
• To increase budget allocation for the improvement of gender equality in all sectors, including the ones allocated for women’s empowerment. 
• To conduct reallocation of public expenditures which are not gender-responsive in order to achieve the goals of MDGs
• To increase the effectiveness of budget utilization in realizing gender equality by financing needs which will improve the condition (fulfill the practical gender needs) and position (fulfill strategic gender needs) of men and women.
• To open a space for the people to conduct monitoring and evaluation of the state budget so that the directions and goals of the existing programs can reduce gender inequality.

 

Benefits of Gender Budget

• Is an effective strategy and tool to reduce poverty because it can encourage government to focus on the improvement of public welfare, particularly for marginal groups including groups of poor women who are heads of the family.
• Reducing social, economic, political, and gender gap between men and women in which the government focuses more on making development priorities which are aimed to improve the welfare of women who have low quality of life in terms of social, economic, political, and gender aspects.
• Helping in disseminating accountability of public resources utilization, including public expenditures, to the people especially women who are often marginalized compared to men in making the decision related to public expenditures utilization.

 

Women’s Rights to Local Government Budget

• Rights to get sufficient budget allocation in the attempt to improve people’s welfare including women’s welfare.
• Rights to get involved in budgeting starting from planning stage to the stages of discussion, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.
• Rights to have control over local government budget to be able to ensure how far budget allocation favors the interests of the people including women.

Reasons for Budget Allocation for Women 

• Women are a part of Indonesian citizens who contribute the most to local government budget through tax and retribution.
• Women are a part of Indonesian citizens who are also development agents. Women also belong to economically, socially, culturally, and politically poorest groups who need assistance in order to achieve their welfare.
• The constitution mandate article 23 of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia which states that the people (including women) have the rights to participate in the process of budget drafting and decision making. 

 

Gender Analysis in Budget Drafting

• Conducting mapping of situation and condition faced by women, men, girls, and boys based on different groups defined by their social classes. (The availability of quantitative and qualitative data on situation and condition faced women, men, girls, and boys).
• Analyzing needs, both for men and women, according to selected statistical data, Human Development Index, Women Development Index, qualitative data, and other supporting data.
• Reviewing and observing whether government policies related to development sectors are gender-responsive.
• Setting the distribution of budget allocation based on the results of gender equality analysis.
• Checking whether the designed budget is in accordance with gender budget policies. 
• Checking whether the expenditures allocated according to budget items in development sectors have been successful in reducing gap of social class, race, ethnic, and sex.

 

Three Categories of Gender Budget

All the three categories can help each department to report budget allocation that they spend based on gender equality principles. ***