Gender-Responsive Budgeting Workshop seeks to restructure the way Government looks at financing the gender agenda

The Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities held a 2-day workshop on Gender Responsive Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluation and Auditing (GRPBMEA) from 6-7 February 2023 in Benoni, Gauteng Province.

The workshop was attended by officials representing the three tiers of government, as well as civil society organisations and academia.

The national workshop, attended by over 500 officials working in planning, monitoring and evaluation, and finance, focussed on the implementation and institutionalisation of the Gender Responsive Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluation and Auditing Framework (GRPBMEAF), approved by Cabinet in 2019. It is important to note that, as the department, our implementation of the framework covers priorities for women, youth and persons with disabilities (WYPD).

The workshop aimed to reflect, engage, and share progress made and lessons learned towards knowledge improvement and commitment to the institutionalisation and mainstreaming of women, youth and persons with disabilities.

The workshop was themed: “Leaping towards the achievement of the MTSF 2019-2024 target to institutionalise 100% women, youth and persons with disabilities Responsive Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluation and Auditing.”

The DWYPD has a critical mandate to regulate the promotion of women empowerment and gender equality, youth development and the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities. The GRPBMEAF is therefore one of a number of tools used by DWYPD to regulate the institutionalisation of mainstreaming of WYPD priorities across the work of government. With this workshop the department sought to encourage and ensure that the broader public service prioritises women, youth, and people with disabilities priorities into all plans and budgets in order to improve the results for women's empowerment, youth development and realisation of the rights of the persons with disabilities in the country.

The workshop sought to:

• Broaden the status on progress made on the implementation of GRPBMEAF by national departments and provincial departments and related stakeholders is provided;

• Share best practices and relevant knowledge regarding policies, programmes and institutional mechanisms which have successfully advanced WYPD empowerment and equality related matters;

• Strengthen monitoring, evaluation and reporting on the implementation of the GRPBMEAF in support of the prioritisation of the institutionalisation and mainstreaming of WYPD;

• Promote accountability for full implementation of GRPBMEAF as well as strengthened knowledge on WYPD evidence; and

• To discuss the recommendations and interventions for continuous improvement on the process of the implementation of GRPBMEAF and WYPD priorities.

A gender responsive budget is an important mechanism for ensuring greater consistency between economic goals and social commitments. Periodically, DWYPD hosts meetings with national and provincial departments to capacitate departments and track progress on the implementation of the framework. The results are an improved awareness and understanding of the framework as well as an improved response rate on the self-assessment reports by departments to over 50%, which provides a baseline on institutionalising the framework.

What is the Gender-Responsive Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluation and Auditing Framework?

The Bill of Rights guarantees full and equal enjoyment of all rights by all genders and the protection of people against any form of discrimination. In addition, South Africa is a signatory to a number of international and regional commitments to gender equality and women empowerment, including the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1995) and the Southern African Development Community Protocol on Gender and Development (2012), amongst others. The South African Parliament has passed legislations that further the goals of gender equality, including the Employment Equity Act, 1998, and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, 2000.

South Africa initiated a number of gender responsive budget initiatives since the dawn of democracy in 1994 and was seen as leading both on the continent and globally in developing and implementing Gender Responsive Budgeting methodologies. However, as a country we have since regressed. There is much to learn from these initiatives and the evolving legislative and policy context in South Africa, and how to sustain our gains. The Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD) developed the Gender Responsive Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluation and Auditing (GRPBMEA) Framework that was approved by Cabinet in 2019. The Framework sets out an approach to ensure that the country and government-wide systems explicitly and consistently respond to women’s empowerment and gender equality priorities. The institutionalisation of GRPBMEA is directly linked to gender mainstreaming across the state.

Gender-responsive budgeting initiatives seek to create a direct linkage between social and economic policies through the application of a gender analysis to the formulation and implementation of government budgets. A gender analysis can also demonstrate the ways in which social institutions that are seemingly “gender neutral” do in fact bear and transmit gender biases. Gender budget analyses can be applied to gender specific expenditures, expenditures that promote gender equity within the public service and general or mainstream expenditures.

The achievement of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment (GEWE) requires a greater equal sharing of the allocated financial resources towards programmes and interventions which should equally benefit women and men. This will ensure the achievement of women’s economic, social and political empowerment. In order to achieve this, engagements with relevant stakeholders is crucial to facilitate commitment towards ensuring the inclusion of gender in the budgeting process. As DWYPD coordinate the implementation of the GRPBMEAF, centre of government departments have been central to driving the government wide institutionalisation of the framework, in particular Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) and National Treasury (NT).

Source: Government of South Africa