Women’s Empowerment

Through Gender Budgeting

- The Indian Context

Presentation by
Akash Saxena
 Gender Budgeting- a definition
• “Gender budget initiatives analyse how
governments raise and spend public money,
with the aim of securing gender equality in
decision-making about public resource
allocation; and gender equality in the
distribution of the impact of government
budgets, both in their benefits and in their
burdens. The impact of government budgets
on the most disadvantaged groups of women
is a focus of special attention.”
 What is Gender Budgeting ?
• An exercise to translate stated gender commitments of
the Government into budgetary commitments.
– Strategy for ensuring Gender Sensitive Resource
Allocation and a tool for engendering macro economic
policy
• Entails affirmative action for empowering women
• Covers assessment of gender differential impact of
Government Budgets and policies (Revenue and
Expenditure).
– Enables Tracking and Allocating resources for women
empowerment
– Opportunity to determine real value of resources
allocated to women
What are gender commitments in
the Indian context ?

• Constitutional Provisions
• Legal Framework
– Women Specific Laws
– Laws affecting Women
• Policies
• Public Expenditure Programmes
Women and Legal Framework
Women specific Legislations
• Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956
• The Maternity Benefit Act 1961
• The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
• Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition)
Act, 1986
• The Commission of Sati (Prevention)Act, 1987
• Protection of Women from Domestic Violence
Act, 2005
 Women related legislations
41 laws covering various spheres.
• Economic
Factories Act 1948, Minimum Wages Act 1948,
Equal Remuneration Act 1976, The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948,
The Plantation Labour Act, 1951, The Bonded Labour System (Abolition)
Act 1976
• Protection
Relevant provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973; Special provisions
under IPC, The Legal Practitioners (Women) Act, 1923, The Pre-Natal
Diagnostic Technique (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse ) Act, 1994.
 Women related legislations
Social
Family Courts Act, 1984, The Indian Succession Act,
1925, The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act
1971, The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, The
Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, The Hindu Succession Act,
1956 (& amended in 2005), The Indian Divorce Act, 1969
 National Policy for
Empowerment of Women
• Objective – advancement, development and
empowerment, elimination of discrimination
• Themes and issues – Judicial legal system,
economic empowerment, social empowerment
(health, education, science and technology,
drinking water and sanitation, protection from
violence) women and decision making, girl child
 Institutional Empowering
Mechanisms
• Parliamentary Committee on
Empowerment of Women
• National Commission for Women
 The Challenge
• How do we translate all these
commitments into budgetary
commitments and
administrative action ?
• How do we engender policies
and programmes ?
Evolution of Indian Initiatives
 Seventh Plan
• 1985- Ministry of Human Resource
Development set up
• Department for Women and Child
Development constituted in HRD Ministry
• 27 major women specific schemes
identified for monitoring to assess quantum
of funds/benefits flowing to women
 Eighth Plan
• The Eighth Plan (1992-97) for the first time
highlighted the need to ensure a definite
flow of funds from general developmental
sectors to women
• It commented:
“ … special programmes on women should
complement the general development
programmes. The latter in turn should
reflect greater gender sensitivity”
 Ninth Plan
• Women’s Component Plan- 30% of funds were
sought to be ear-marked in all women related
sectors – inter-sectoral review and multi-sector
approach
• Special vigil to be kept on the flow of the
earmarked funds/benefits
• Quantifies performance under Women’s
Component Plan in Ninth Plan-Approach Paper
Tenth Plan indicates 42.9% of gross budgetary
support in 15 women related
Ministries/Departments has gone to women
 Tenth Plan
• Reinforces commitment to gender budgeting to
establish its gender-differential impact and to
translate gender commitments into budgetary
commitments.
• Aims at initiating immediate action in tying up the
two effective concepts of Women Component Plan
(WCP) and Gender Budgeting to play a
complementary role to each other, and thus ensure
both preventive and post-facto action in enabling
women to receive their rightful share from all the
women-related general development sectors.
 Indian Experience
• Women’s Component Plan-Earmarking
resources for women
• Implementing Women Specific Schemes
• Monitoring macro indicators like MMR
Literacy rates, work participation
• Quantum and Trend analysis of
resources allocated and spent on women
• Gender Audit of schemes and programmes-
implementation and impact analysis
Action by the Department for Women &
Child Development
• Issue of checklists / guidelines for gender audit
of public expenditure
• Adoption of Strategic Framework for Gender
Budgeting
• Special letters sent to Ministry of Finance and
Planning Commission to engender the Annual
Plan and Budget exercise for 2005-2006
• Consultations with select Departments on four
priority areas
– Food and Nutrition Security & Employment guarantee
– Water and Sanitation
– Adequate Health facilities
– Asset base for women
Action by the Department for Women
& Child Development
• Capacity Building- Departments in GOI
and State Governments
• Mainstreaming Gender Concerns-
Watchdog approach
– Interest Subsidy
– Kerosene Oil
– Micro Credit
– Health Insurance
– Inflation
 Instructions issued by Inter-
Departmental Committee, GOI
• All Departments to open Gender
Budget Cells by 1.1. 2005
• All Departments to reflect benefit-
incidence analysis of expenditure in
Annual Reports-2005-06
• Eighteen Departments to reflect
gender component of schemes in
Performance Budgets of 2005-06
 Union Budget 2005-06

• New Statement on Gender

Budgeting
• Nine Departments Identified
for focus
 Gender Mainstreaming- our new
Mantra for “Women’s Development”
• Women as a beneficiary segment
– Need for Gender mainstreaming
– Fiscal and Monetary Policies, Legislations
• Need to Change Programme formulations
and implementation processes
– More gender friendly
– Optimize Participation of Voluntary Sector
• Gender budgeting – not an end in itself
 Rationale of Alternative
Strategy
• Empowerment has to be
– Holistic (Political, Social and
Economic)
– Universal (equal opportunity and
level playing field)
– Participative and Inclusive
Framework of Gender Budgeting
• Quantification of allocation of resources for
women
• Gender Audit of policies of the Government
• Impact assessment of various schemes in
the Union and State budgets
• Analyzing schematic and policy initiatives
and link with impact on status of women
related Macro Indicators
Framework of Gender Budgeting
• Institutionalizing the generation and collection of
gender dis-aggregated data
• Consultations and Capacity building
• Promote gender equity in participation in decision
making
Holistic approach to Empowerment
Health Water & San. Political
& Nut. Participation
Education
Asset base
Skills
Marketing

Technology Credit
 Action Areas
• Women availing services of public utilities
like road transport, power, water and
sanitation, telecommunication etc.
• Training of women as highly skilled workers-
top end skills
• Research/Technology for women
• Women in the work force
• Asset ownership by women
• Women as Entrepreneurs
• Implementation of Laws like
– Equal remuneration
– Minimum Wages
– Factories Act
• Infrastructure for women like
– Water and sanitation at workplace
– Creches
– Working Women Hostels
– Transport services
– Security
 Gender Analysis of State Budgets
• Research Study – Decadal trend
Expenditure on Women's Development (Rs in cr.)
YEAR CENTRE STATES TOTAL
AMOUNT % AMOUNT % AMOUNT
1993-94 440.32 41 643.25 59 1083.57
1994-95 643.48 48 700.17 52 1343.65
1995-96 558.22 37 960.88 63 1519.09
1996-97 811.40 44 1050.35 56 1861.75
1997-98 893.60 43 1169.21 57 2062.81
1998-99 1178.17 47 1348.47 53 2526.64
1999-00 1382.04 50 1398.29 50 2780.33
2000-01 1550.80 48 1709.84 52 3260.63
2001-02 (RE) 1838.64 48 2031.73 52 3870.37
2002-03 (BE) 1507.59 41 2211.57 59 3719.16
 Preliminary Findings
• Higher percentage share of states in
expenditure on women
• Expenditure on Health is largest
component
• Broad trend reflects increase in expenditure
• Wide annual fluctuations in many states
• Some states reflect relatively less
expenditure compared with population
of women
 Path Ahead
• Pursue Gender Mainstreaming in the
Government through coordination with Gender
Budget cells
• Widening scope of National Statistical System
• Widening scope from public expenditure to
Revenues, Fiscal and Monetary Policies
• Pursue gender budgeting by States with help of
planning Commission and MOF
• Capacity Building- Coordinate with training
institutes and experts to standardize
methodology and tools
 To Conclude
• “It is more important to create a general awareness’
and understanding of the problems of women’s
employment in all the top policy and decision making
and executive personnel. There is also the special
problem facing women like the preference for male
children for social and cultural reasons. This will
require awareness, understanding and action. The
best way to do so is to educate the children, orient the
teachers, examine the text books and teaching-aids
and ensure that the next generation grows up with
new thinking.”
(6th Five Year Plan )
Thank you