Research

Gender Responsive Budgeting

Gender issues have been addressed in academic as well as policy research in the country in a number of areas and the consequent insights and debates are very rich. The discourse on fiscal policy too has incorporated gender questions in the past. However, research on gender responsiveness of government budgets in the country dates back only to the late 1990s. In this backdrop, CBGA’s research on gender issues looks at both the larger questions on India’s fiscal policy regime and the specifics of budgets at various levels of governance.

While it is important to ensure progressivity in the overall fiscal policy so as to address some of the fundamental gender concerns, it is equally pertinent to study how well the larger policy priorities are getting translated into gender responsive interventions on the ground; and, the processes relating to budgets play a crucial role in the latter. CBGA pays a lot of attention to how the strategy of Gender Responsive Budgeting or Gender Budgeting is being designed and implemented by the Union, State and local governments in the country.

We recognize that due to the gender-based disadvantages confronting women and girl children in our society, government programmes and schemes across sectors might not only lead to lesser benefits for women as compared to men they might even reinforce some of the patriarchal social norms and biases against women. Hence, CBGA stresses that Gender Responsive Budgeting at any level of government in any sector ought to be designed in such a way that the processes of planning, budgeting and execution of government programmes and schemes are carried out with in depth understanding of gender issues in the sector and integration of gender responsive policy measures to address the issues.

CBGA’s research focuses on developing evidence-based roadmaps for adoption of Gender Responsive Budgeting not just in the social sectors but also in those sectors that have conventionally been treated as ‘indivisible’ sectors (like road transport, energy, science and technology etc.). We also emphasise on taxation policies being scrutinized from a gender lens.

CBGA works extensively with government officials and civil society organisations across the country towards deepening of Gender Responsive Budgeting at the national and subnational levels.