what is gender budget analysis?

A gender budget is not a separate budget for women. It is an approach which can be used to highlight the gap between policy statements and the resources committed to their implementation, ensuring that public money is spent in more gender equitable ways. The issue is not whether we are spending the same on women and men, but whether the spending is adequate to women and men's needs.

Gender budgets are a tool for testing a government's gender mainstreaming commitments - linking policy commitments across government departments with their budgets. Without a suitable economic underpinning, a government's equality commitments are unlikely to be realised.

Gender budget initiatives go beyond the assessment of programmes targeted specifically at women and girls, and seek to expose assumptions of 'gender neutrality' within all economic policy - raising awareness and understanding that budgets will impact differently on women and men because of the different social and economic positioning.