4.3. Parliament Members of parliament, local and regional assemblies, especially women, participate in the negotiation, amendment and adoption of budgets proposed by the executive. Through advocacy and lobbying they participate in the development of the political will and thus contribute towards strengthening the government’s commitment with regard to gender budgeting. The roles and responsibilities of members of parliament primarily refer to advocating for the gender budgeting process through parliamentary committees, verification of the presence of gender aspects within the budget prior to its adoption and the supervision of budget implementation. However, as Budlender and others warn (Budlender, Elson, Hewitt and Mukhopadhyay 2002), their role depends on the political power they wield in the overall political life within the country. Research conducted by Costa, Sawer and Sharp also shows that gender focussed institutions, such as women’s caucuses in Parliament, can be an important means of increasing the voice of female parliamentarians in GRB (Costa, Sawer and Sharp 2012).
4.4. International Organisations and Agencies International and bilateral agencies supporting gender budgeting initiatives include: the United Nations, the Commonwealth Secretariat, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), United Kingdom Government Department for International Development (DFID) and the World Bank. The UN Fund for Women19 and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Council of Europe, European Union and the Nordic Council played a key role when it came to the formulation and the adoption of international gender equality standards, special resolutions and guidelines helped governments to formulate their strategies and initiatives in this area. International organisations encourage and fund research and analyses in this area, collect examples of good practice and provide technical assistance and support for the gender budgeting initiatives of governments, which is particularly valuable at the early stages of the introduction of gender budgeting. For example, the Council of Europe informal expert group that was tasked with defining gender budgeting, collecting the necessary information and harmonising all of the activities undertaken by the different stakeholders in this domain. This group of experts was appointed to draft a report on gender budgeting focused on awareness raising in this domain amongst the member countries and collected practical examples of good practice on gender budgeting, which contributed to the more effective and efficient targeting and use of public funds.
19 In 2010 the United Nations Development Fund for Women was replaced by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
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Textbook for Universities