Incorporating gender budgeting into good public financial management

This chapter provides an overview of how public financial management can be adapted to achieve gender equality, highlighting entry points for gender budgeting into traditional practices and identifying the main stakeholders and participants involved. A variety of considerations influence government financial decision-making, and public budgets reflect the outcomes of political and social considerations, not just economic ones. The technical requirements of good budgeting, measuring the costs and benefits of each decision, are challenging because political and social costs are subjective, and short-term costs are not always indicative of long-term ones. The responsibility for execution of the budget falls to the ministries and other agencies of the government. A critical element for effective public financial management and accountability is fiscal transparency. Program budgeting tends to lend itself better than traditional line item budgeting to incorporating themes, such as achieving gender-related objectives, into the budget process. Rhonda Sharp observed the potential of program or performance budgeting to further gender budgeting goals. Gender equality audit analysis is similar to a gender equality impact assessment in that it focuses on the impacts of programs and policies, from a gender angle.