Global Alliance for Tax Justice’s committed partner Oxfam International just launched a set of Gender Responsive Budgeting resources to help make civil society’s #TaxJustice work “go further and do more for women and girls, especially those facing intersecting inequalities”. Oxfam has produced these resources together with experts from the UK Women’s Budget Group and trialed them with colleagues in Vietnam. “We now hope to reach all those pursuing fiscal justice or gender justice, Oxfam says, so that we can build and reinforce bridges across these communities to make sure everyone – genders and intersections – gets the full benefit of budgets. Only then we can make fiscal systems truly transformative to improve the lives of all (women and men, girls and boys) and to structurally transform the currently existing unequal power structures”.
The resources are compiled in a “Guide to Gender-Responsive Budgeting”, complemented by a guide for trainers and organized around a cycle diagram template. All will be available in English, Spanish and French very soon – See here the Diagram and Guide for trainers in French already.
“Gender responsive budgeting, Oxfam adds, means we take a conscious look at how to involve people who are poorly represented in economic decision making, because they are not seen or heard or able to be at the table. Unless we take a gendered approach to budgeting, we are not only letting certain groups down by leaving them out of the picture, we are very likely to be reinforcing inequalities that mean they are being left even further behind”.
“It is our job to ensure that together, we push governments to make budgets work for and accountable to everyone. Gender Responsive Budgeting is often treated as an exercise in analysis and box ticking. But Oxfam’s approach goes beyond that, to focus on political decisions and making sure marginalized women and young people get in on conversations around government budgets. Only when different groups are really able to be part of the budget process do we stand a chance of their different needs and interests being taken into account in government’s fiscal – tax and spending – policies”.
Oxfam states that “these Beyond GRB resources will help you to step up your work by:
- Giving you a fresh look at how budgets are made and spent, seeing how they interact differently for women and for men
- Allowing you to develop strategies to achieve more gender responsiveness in the different stages of the fiscal cycle
- Suggesting with which actors to engage with, advocate and influence for more gender responsiveness in the different stages of the fiscal cycle”.
See also the blog by Oxfam colleagues Clare & Huong to see how these resources have already helped Oxfam and partners in Vietnam to better understand what governments budgets would look like that work for women and girls.