Gender Responsive Budgeting

Prepared by Nancy Price and Laura Roskos for WILPFNational Congress 2011

Women’s International League for Peace and

Freedomwww.wilpf.org

END WARTriennial National CongressJune 1-5, 2011Chapel Hill, NC

Gender-responsive budgeting is aligned with larger trends: Toward decentralization of budgeting to subnational units more in touch with social needs

Toward greater civil society participation in setting budget priorities

Toward giving appropriate weight to non-monetized aspects of human life Ecological balance and nature Subsistence agriculture and production Unpaid care work and civic stewardship

Countries That Have Undertaken Gender-budgeting Initiatives at the National or Subnational Level of Government

So, what does GENDER have to do with Ending War?

Gender is what others perceive when they look at us.

Gender is the organization of human difference into a social hierarchy.

Gender equality is important for development and peace because national and global inequities perpetuate themselves and increase tensions of all types.

What are budgets and what do they have to do with Ending War?

Taxpayers in the city of Chapel Hill, North Carolina have paid $178.0 million for Total War Spending (Iraq + Afghanistan) since FY01

http://www.governmentcontractswon.com/department/defense/biomerieux_inc_086785110.asp?yr=09

But,On Sept. 19, 2006, Raytheon was honored by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for achieving a 100 percent score on the annual HRC Corporate Equality Index for the second consecutive year. The HRC, which is the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) rights organization, uses the Corporate Equality Index as a tool to rate American businesses on how they treat GLBT employees, consumers and investors.

And, looking at gender can be a bit tricky.

Take the case of:

maker of "Bunker Buster" bombs, Tomahawk and Patriot missiles and provider of myriad support and intelligence services to the U.S. armed forces. It has around 73,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues of approximately US$20 billion. More than 90 percent of Raytheon's revenues were obtained from defense contracts and, as of 2007, it was the fifth largest defense contractor in the world, and is the fourth largest defense contractor in the United States by revenue

And,

2007: Raytheon Co. has committed $75,000 over three years to Penn State to sponsor the Women in the Sciences & Engineering (WISE) Camp program. The program is a one-week residential science and engineering career exploration program for 11th- and 12th-grade girls. The program encourages young women to pursue science, engineering and mathematics careers and supports Raytheon's efforts to create an inclusive work force.

2008: Raytheon’s commitment to community outreach was on full display at the 13th Annual Women of Color Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Conference, held Oct. 23-25 in Dallas. More than 160 middle and high school students from the Dallas area were introduced to Raytheon’s MathMovesU initiative at the event..

2009: In its winter issue, IEEE Women in Engineering magazine named Raytheon one of the top ten “Best Companies for Women to Work.” The annual list is determined by a panel of national experts in workforce diversity, as well as engineering and science leaders. The article singled out the Raytheon Women’s Network (RWN), calling it a valuable networking tool.

2010: For the sixth consecutive year, Raytheon supported the Massachusetts Conference for Women as a corporate sponsor. Rebecca Rhoads, chief information officer, and Pam Wickham, vice president of Corporate Affairs and Communications, hosted a company breakfast to kick-off the event, with guest speaker Cindy Solomon who spoke on creating a culture of courage. Wickham, a Massachusetts Conference for Women board member, hosted a health and wellness discussion panel — “The CEO of Your Health: Are You Ready to Lead the Charge?”

What is gender responsive budgeting?

Gender responsive budgeting happens when public sector leaders, employees, or civil society partners start to ask “gender questions” about public spending priorities.

Can be effected at any level of governance, from federal to municipal.

Can be initiated by public sector or civil society.

On revenue side: regressive taxation policies hurt women the most. Direct taxes Indirect taxes Intergovernmental Revenues (transfers, tax-base sharing, direct spending) Conditional grants (easiest to gender-analyze because they fund specific programs)

Unconditional grants Debt

Women suffer more from regressive tax policy because they still earn less, are more likely to work part time,

and are much more likely to have their careers interrupted by periods of unpaid care work.

On expenditure side:

After CEDAW became the law in San Francisco,

City and County departments were required to conduct gender audits as part of their internal evaluation processes.

This meant asking gender questions about:Direct impacts of budget allocations (i.e., jobs created)

Indirect impacts of budget allocations (i.e., program recipients or constituents served)

Program foci and funding

Specifically, they had to ask: What are the numbers for our department (budget, services, employment)?

What are employee and community concerns about our department?

For each program: How do our practices promote the human rights of women and girls?

How do our practices limit the human rights of women and girls?

This, in turn, required them to begin to collect gender

disaggregated data(something that is rarely done by

governments)

“Disaggregated data is data collected and analyzed by categories (e.g., by sex and race) in order to identify the gaps between women and men, and between women and men of various ethnicity, for a given situation. Wherever possible, the data should include related categories of gender, race, immigration status, parental status, language, sexual orientation, disability, age, and other attributes in order to understand and meet the specific needs of all women and men.”

--San Francisco Guidelines for Gender Analysis

In 2009-10, University of MA and the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women published a gender analysis of the economic downturn in the state.

Now, it’s your turn: Read the newspaper clipping passed out by facilitators

With your group, brainstorm gender questions you might ask about the scenario in the clipping

Prioritize the questions by considering the human rights of the effected women and girls

Imagine where you might go to get the data you need to test your hypotheses and make your case.

With special thanks to: Guidelines for a Gender Analysis: Human Rights with a Gender Perspective by San Francisco CEDAW Task Force/Commission on the Status of Women (July 2000).

“Integrating Gender into Government Budgets: A New Perspective” by Marilyn Marks, Mark Rubin and John R. Bartle (Public Administration Review, v. 65, n. 3, May-June 2005).

Women and the U.S. Budget: Where the Money Goes and What You Can Do About It by Jane Midgley (New Society Publishers, 2005).

Women in a Down Economy: Impacts of the Recession and the Stimulus in Massachusetts by the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (U-Mass Boston) and the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women (March 2010).