The role and effectiveness of gender responsive budgeting in education and health policies of Punjab in Pakistan

Abstract

Introduction :

Achieving gender equality and women’s rights has become an international agenda, over the last few decades, especially in the discourse of development. However, the progress in the recognition of women’s human rights in international instruments has not been matched by progress in the implementation and enforcement of these rights by state bodies. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is adopted as a distinct strategy in many countries to advance gender equality through affirmative pro-poor budgetary allocations (Sabir, 2009). GRB is not just about recognizing women’s rights and presenting number crunching figures related to demographics and social conditions, instead, it tries to establish gender mainstreaming with social interactions of women and men through an institutionalized and administrative process.

In the past, the government has formulated Gender Reform Action Plan (GRAP), ratified CEDAW and established National Policy for Development and Empowerment of Women in Pakistan. In addition, recognizing the importance of gender-sensitive policies, the Government of Pakistan jointly with the UNDP and its donors introduced GRB in Punjab in five different sectors; health, education, agriculture, population welfare and social welfare development (Wattoo, 2012). Consequently, a Gender Budget Statement of the Government shows a progress in this regard. However, the meticulous instruments reveal that the inherent challenges faced in implementing GRB in Pakistan. Moreover, it is always difficult and challenging to persuade those who are at the helm of policy making to transform their standard ways of working and to introduce gender-sensitive modifications (Budlender and Mahbub, 2007). As a result, women become part of the administrative and institutional process, but still there is lack of female participation in these aspects. Hence, the available literature on GRB worldwide and in Pakistan is confined to the Gender Budget Statements (prepared annually from 2006-2011) but no studies have been conducted on how effective is GRB in adopting a gender lens in public budgeting.