What is Gender Budgeting?

Gender Budgeting is defined as a tool to achieve equality between men and women. Gender Budgeting aims to achieve this by overlooking the formulation of gender-specific policies, their implementation and review. The Ministry of Women and Child Development website stresses that Gender Budgeting is not just an accounting exercise but an ongoing process of keeping a gender perspective in policy formulation, its implementation and review.

It is important to understand the difference between gender and sex here. The concept of gender in it contains the social aspects like responsibilities, relations and regulations. Sex is the biological difference between males and females.

The reason for the overlooking formulation of policies specific to gender or gender budgeting is that the national budget impact men and women differently through the pattern of resource allocation. Women, who constitute 48% of the Indian population, lag behind in many development parameters like health, education, Social sector scheme benefits, employment etc.

The first reference for the Gender Budgeting was first brought out in the eighth five-year plan (1992-97) before finally being adopted in 2005-06 budget. Gender Budgeting is currently done in 37 Central Ministries.

According to available data, an amount of 1.50 crore was released in Financial Year 2017-18, Rs. 3.14 crore during 2018-19 and Rs. 1.70 crore during 2019-20. At present, the concept of Gender Budgeting has been adopted by 27 states. The first being Odisha during 2004-05 and Manipur being latest in 2020. Goa, Haryana, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Telangana, Chandigarh, Ladakh, and Puducherry are yet to adopt.

Globally China was the first country to show the way in Gender Budgeting at the fourth world conference of women in Beijing in 1995 by declaring its determination “to advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere in the interest of all humanity. “

A few challenges associated with the implementation of Gender Budging are;

1. Lack of available segregated data on sex, with ministries. The collection of gender-specific data needs technical knowledge and mechanism.
2. Need for the ministries to move from just allocating funds.