In July this year, the union finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, allocated a sum of Rs 3.2 lakh crore towards schemes aimed at women beneficiaries as a part of gender-budgeting initiatives. The government’s allocation for gender-responsive budgeting has gone up by 37.33% from the previous financial year. The fund is said to have touched the peak ever since it was launched a couple of decades ago. Before we delve into the topic, let’s understand what gender-responsive budgeting actually means.
Understanding Gender-responsive Budgeting
Gender-responsive budgeting is a type of budget plan that aims to allocate resources by considering the needs of all genders. It requires analysing budgets to identify gender gaps well before creating schemes and policies to address those gaps. To address the gender gaps, governments need to understand the specific requirements of men, women and other genders and allocate specific budgets for them in each of their projects. This type of budget strives for a fair distribution of resources by applying a gender lens to the entire policy process. It thereby aims to work well for each of its citizens.
The existing budgets and economic models often pave the path for fiscal policies and they are biased. For they do not take into consideration the specific requirements of women. This often ends up having a huge gender gap within it and has unintended negative consequences. So when gender gaps are identified, available resources can be used to address the gender inequalities and ensure sustainable and inclusive development for all.
Meanwhile, goal 5 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The goal focuses on ending violence, discrimination, and harmful practices against women and girls. It also focuses on ensuring women’s full participation in political, economic, and public life. The deadline set for countries to meet the goals is 2030.
According to UN Women, more than 100 countries have taken steps to implement gender-responsive budgeting to address the historical underinvestment in essential services for women and girls. “Data from 105 countries shows that only 26% have comprehensive systems to track gender equality allocations in the budget. However, data also shows that a majority of countries have made some progress on gender-responsive budgeting and are working to improve their systems despite the prevailing gaps in gender equality spending,” it says.
Implementing gender-responsive budgets requires robust institutional frameworks, political will, laws and a whole-government approach to encourage and implement equal distribution of resources, to collect reliable data required to understand the diverse needs of people, to collaborate with private sectors and civil societies and to have monitoring and evaluation systems to estimate future budget adjustments.
Importance of Gender-responsive Budgeting
Gender-responsive budgeting has become essential in recent times. For it ensures that the government puts on the gender lens while drafting policies and making financial allocations to address the specific needs of all genders. Below are some of the key reasons why a gender-responsive budget is extremely important.
- Promotes gender equality: A gender-responsive budget makes sure that the government allocates funds to schemes and projects that address the unique needs of women and others. Its primary objective is to increase women’s access to resources like education, healthcare and employment opportunities by removing barriers that perpetuate gender inequalities.
- Incorporates women’s perspective in policy making: A strong political will and a robust institutional framework are the most required to make a gender-responsive budget in a country. Before tabling the budget, it is crucial to analyse and understand the requirements of women and other genders. Until recently, all the schemes and budgets were solely proposed and implemented by men with a few or no women on the team. While analysing the requirements of women, the perspective of non-men comes to the discussion on the table. It, thereby, gives a unique perspective even to the existing policies.
- Enhances economic growth and development: By ensuring that all members of society, regardless of gender, have equal opportunities to contribute to and benefit from economic progress, gender-responsive budgeting fosters broader economic growth. For instance, by investing in education and skill-development programmes for women, it contributes to a more educated and skilled workforce. When women gain equal access to quality education, they are more likely to enter the workforce and contribute productively to the economy. A key component of gender-responsive budgeting is ensuring women’s participation in the labor market by removing barriers such as wage discrimination, lack of child care facilities and unequal access to training and career advancement. Increased participation of women in the workforce boosts national economic productivity.
India and its Gender-budgeting Initiatives
The Indian government introduced a gender-responsive budget in 2005-06. Its main objective is to ensure that government budgets address the requirements of women and girls. Since then the union government has been putting on a gender lens at all stages of policy-making. The union ministry of women and child development implements gender budgeting at the national level, while the women and child development department, social welfare and finance departments act as its nodal agencies in states and union territories.
The government has been publishing a gender budget statement every year along with its budget. The budget statement presents gender-specific allocation for women. The statement breaks down expenditure into three categories. The first part deals with the allocation of funds made specifically for women-centric schemes (all beneficiaries are women). The other two parts deal with allocations of funds for schemes that benefit both men and women (part B has schemes that have about 30-99% of beneficiaries as women and part A has schemes that have up to 30% of their beneficiaries as women).
Ever since its implementation, the government has been allocating an average of 5% of the total budgetary allocation as gender budgeting. Some of the schemes that receive funds under gender budgeting are affordable housing, access to water supply and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
The government has advanced the cause of gender-responsive budgeting by making the highest financial allocation as part of the gender budget statement in the financial year 2024-25. It has allocated a sum of Rs 3.2 lakh crore. This is about 1% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and around 6.8% of the total expenditure budget.
According to the latest annual report published by the Union Women and Child Development Ministry, it aims to achieve 100% coverage of gender budgeting in all union ministries and departments, states and union territories as a part of its Mission Shakti for the empowerment of women. Its focus is on strengthening institutional mechanisms and processes to undertake gender budgeting at the union and state levels, developing internal and external capacities and building expertise across sectors to integrate the gender perspective in planning, budgeting and auditing.
Conclusion
It is indeed a positive sign that India is moving towards a gender-responsive budget to address gender disparities. But it continues as an evolving process and the country still has a long way to go to address the issues. Recently, the United Nations has lauded the Indian government for its gender budgeting initiatives. At the same time, it has also pointed out that India lacks sex-disaggregated data and continues to exclude key programmes that benefit women. Ensuring that the budget remains true to its name requires continuous monitoring, a deeper understanding of gender issues and active participation from women in all stages of planning and implementation. A more inclusive approach that addresses the intersectional aspects of gender will strengthen the impact of these policies.
Smile Foundation’s women empowerment programme, Swabhiman embodies the principles of gender-responsive budgeting by ensuring resources and opportunities reach those who need them most. Through targeted initiatives in entrepreneurship and healthcare, the programme addresses systemic gaps and empowers women and girls to lead independent, fulfilling lives.
With a strong focus on grassroots involvement, Smile’s efforts not only enhance access to essential services but also support economic independence and community leadership among women. By working hand-in-hand with local communities, the programme amplifies the voices of women, ensuring their needs and perspectives shape sustainable solutions for India and the world.