Gender budgeting is a crucial public financial management (PFM) tool that promotes fiscal transparency and accountability, ultimately driving gender equality outcomes. This approach is particularly significant in the context of Viksit Bharat@2047, where it can play a pivotal role in achieving inclusive and sustainable development. By applying a gender lens to existing budgets, understanding the futuristic data requirements including the care economy statistics , and postulating an ex-ante gender budgeting, national and sub national governments can translate compelling gender commitments into budgetary commitments. This public policy approach has gained momentum globally, with various countries emulating gender budgeting to promote gender equality and accountability in public financial management.
The Role of NIPFP in Pioneering Gender Budgeting
The National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) , the independent think tank of Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has played a crucial role in pioneering gender budgeting in India. As a policy think tank under Ministry of Finance, NIPFP has acted as the centre for excellence in gender budgeting in the region, and provided analytical templates to the Ministry of Finance, to integrate gender budgeting within the existing classification of budget, thereby translating gender commitments into budgetary commitments. These analytical matrices have been used by the national and the sub national governments in conducting gender budgeting.
India has generated a time series data on gender budgeting based on NIPFP analytical matrices to capture the fiscal data through a gender lens. This time data series is available since 2004-05 in India at the national level, and subsequently the sub national governments have also generated time series data on gender budgeting.
NIPFP's technical expertise has been instrumental in shaping the gender budgeting process in India, and its research has informed policy decisions at the national and subnational levels. Under the guidance of NIPFP, India has been at the forefront of promoting gender budgeting in Asia Pacific, and its work has had a significant impact on the global fiscal policies. This journey has been captured in the latest book by the author titled ‘Fiscal policies for Sustainable Development: Gender Budgeting in India’ published by the Palgrave Macmillan.
Gender Budgeting, as Fiscal Innovation
Gender budgeting is a significant fiscal innovation. The process of fiscal innovation transcends four stages: knowledge building, creating institutional structures, capacity building, and installing accountability mechanisms. Gender budgeting has the potential to promote gender equality and accountability in public financial management, and its significance cannot be undermined. Later, the gender budgeting templates have been suitably adapted to green budgeting and child budgeting across countries. The recent initiatives on climate responsive budgeting owe a lot from the gender budgeting templates and matrices, as a public financial management (PFM) tool.
Impact of Gender Budgeting
The impact of gender budgeting has been positive, with significant effects on gender equality outcomes in education, health, and labor force participation. The inference from an IMF research paper on Indian gender budgeting has shown that gender budgeting can lead to a decline in gender disparities in educational outcomes. Another research paper coauthored by the author with the IMF economist revealed that integrating gender in intergovernmental fiscal transfers (IGFT) can improve the progressivity of fiscal transfers. Furthermore, a research paper by the author published by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, New York showed that public investment policy can redress intra-household inequalities in terms of labor supply decisions by supporting initiatives that reduce the allocation of time in non-market work. Another study by the University of California, using the sub national data on gender budgeting in India, revealed that there is an inverse relationship between gender budgeting and violence against women. Studies have also shown that gender budgeting efforts have significant impact on gender equality sensitive indices (GESI) as compared to economic growth.
Challenges and Future Directions
Despite the progress made in implementing gender budgeting initiatives, there are still challenges to be addressed. One of the key challenges is to give gender budgeting legal standing in the countries in the region. As NextGen reform, a legislation supporting gender budgeting in India is a crucial step towards Viksit Bharat@2047 commitments. A legal mandate on gender budgeting is rarely found in the Asia Pacific region, and gender budgeting is more a fiscal fiat than a legal fiat. The exceptions are Korea and the Philippines.
Another challenge is to incorporate care economy policies into macroeconomic frameworks, which can help to reduce the allocation of time in non-market work and promote more equitable and sustainable development outcomes. These details of gender budgeting in Asia Pacific can be accessed from an IMF research paper written by the author ( IMF Working Paper 150).
By integrating unpaid care economy and strengthening gender budgeting processes, national and sub national governments can ensure that their budgets are more responsive to the gender equitable needs. With continued efforts and commitment, gender budgeting can be a game-changer for Viksit Bharat@2047 in promoting gender equality and accountability in public financial management. The calculus of consent of the voters and the political economy of gender budgeting links are still understated in such a large democracy like India.
[The earlier version of this article was published in the August edition of Kerala Calling.]