Men and women have different socio-economic status and positions in our society and they play diverse roles and carry out distinct responsibilities. So, their needs should be considered differently. In general, a government of a country deals with the socio-economic demand of the people. The most significant procedure of fulfilling the desire of the people is the national budget. For each fiscal year the government draws up a financial plan for a given period indicating the areas of resources to come from and how to utilise them. The budget or financial plan is considered the government's key mechanism to achieve its socio-economic objectives.
Now, a few questions arise over the budget. They are: Can a gender-blind budget fulfil the demand of men and women equitably? How can a gender-blind budget work for betterment of men and women to achieve their goals? Is a budget equally applicable for men and women in different sectors such as education, health, commerce or agriculture? To ensure equal distribution of resources, a gender-responsive budget (GRB) is very much needed in Bangladesh.
The GRB involves government planning, programming and budgeting to ensure gender equality and women's rights. It involves identifying interventions to find out gender gaps in government policies, plans and budgets. GRB initiatives are aimed at creating enabling policy frameworks, building capacity and strengthening monitoring to support accountability to women. It does not mean that a separate budget is needed for women and girls or allocation of resources for men and women on a 50-50 basis. However, it might look to adopt gender perspicacity in the budgetary policy to clearly identify gender-specific goals to reduce the gender gap and inequality.
Gender inequality in education, employment and access to productive assets, including agricultural inputs, can affect productivity and growth. For example, economic growth of a country is directly affected by gender inequality in education. There is a powerful correlation between women's enrolment rates in secondary education and the per capita income. Gender inequality in education has a negative impact on economic growth. There has also been a growing realisation that government interventions are necessary to achieve both economic growth and equality and the GRB can assist in this process.
Moreover, the basic prerequisite of GRB is that the national budget is not considered as a neutral mechanism that has the same and unbiased impact on all people living in a country. Given the scarcity of resources and inability to meet all needs, the GRB can help ensure that resources are utilised in meeting the needs of those, who are the least capable. Indeed, the GRB can prove that gender equality is required to achieve true efficiency.
In view of the argument, it can be said that a gender-responsive budget is really required in our budgetary policy. Basically, policy makers, when they prepare a budget, pay less attention to gender perspectives. Thus, most of the women do not get the benefit of the budget and they are severely deprived in the areas of health, education, agriculture and commerce. To reduce the gender gap, the GRB is very much essential. The government, parliament, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the civil society all can work in this area. Most significantly, political leaders and parties should come forward to prepare and implement the GRB considering the vulnerable condition of women in the country.
The writer is Assistant Professor
at the Department of Public Administration at the University
of Rajshahi.
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