Address by Deputy Minister of Social Development, Dr Jean Swanson-Jacobs, at the workshop on Gender Responsive Budgeting

Officials of the Department of Social Development
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is fitting that we are gathered here today as my colleague, the Minister of Finance, makes ready to deliver yet another budget speech in two days' time. The Constitution of our country compels us to ensure that we do not discriminate against women. However, the budgets of our country have generally been patriarchal in nature, thus defeating by stealth the very noble intentions of our Constitution to promote equality.

It is through the budget that a government's commitment to gender equality and women's empowerment is translated into practical policies, programmes and activities. It is common cause that women are the most affected by poverty. Poverty bears the face of a woman, hence the phrase, the feminisation of poverty. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is a sure way of responding to the plight of poverty and ensuring that government's intentions are translated into reality.

It is indeed commendable to witness so many top managers assembled for a Gender Budgeting Workshop. This will go a long way towards ensuring the consistent application of GRB within programmes of the department. Most of you present here today were part of the Gender Training Workshop in August 2007. I thus feel confident that many of you will be able to draw the link between gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting. In fact, gender budgeting is an extension of gender mainstreaming.

An overarching theme worth noting in this regard is "Financing for Gender Equality." Managers might be aware that the theme for the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW), to be held from the 25 February to 7 March 2008 in New York, is "Financing for Gender Equality". It would have been more enriching to have Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), planners and other financial officials attend this session. However let me swiftly mention that the responsibility of gender budgeting does not lie solely with the CFO but all officials from the top to the bottom.

This meeting of the UNCSW is the first time that GRB will take centre stage on the international arena thus far GRB has been short-changed. Many of you might be aware of the Paris Declaration of 2003 on Financing for Development which South Africa signed in 2005. However the declaration itself is silent on gender and gender budgeting, mentioning gender only once when referring to the Millennium Development Goals. Managers trained in gender will therefore understand when I refer to it as gender blind. This declaration will be further interrogated in a session to be held in Ghana from 4 to 8 September 2008.

I am made to understand that the New Partnerships for Africa's Development (Nepad) Task Team also has gender equality as a theme for this year with some projects on gender budgeting to be explored. The United Nations structure itself needs to come under scrutiny. United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the United Nations Women's Fund and our partner organisation receives the smallest budget from the United Nations (UN) purse.

We thus have an important role to play in understanding and bringing to the fore the significance of GRB. GRB is about ensuring that government budgets, and the policies and programmes that underlie them address the needs and interests of individuals that belong to different social groups. Thus, GRB looks at biases that can arise because a person is male or female, but at the same time considers disadvantage suffered as a result of ethnicity, caste, class or poverty status, location and age. GRB is not about separate budgets for women or men nor about budgets divided equally. It is about determining where the needs of men and women are the same, and where they differ. Where the needs are different, allocations should be different.

GRB is a way of holding governments accountable for their commitments to gender equality and women's human rights by linking these commitments to the distribution, use and generation of public resources. It identifies the implications of budgets for women and girls as compared to men and boys. This forms the basis for reordering the budget process and priorities to support women's empowerment and gender equality.

Let me reiterate that GRB is:

* not about separate budgets for women, men, girls or boys
* not about setting aside x% for gender/women
* not about 50% male: 50% female for every expenditure.

GRB analyses the impact of government's budget on women, men, girls and boys. In South Africa for example it has contributed to the employment of maintenance investigators by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development and to the allocation of money for training of officials on the Domestic Violence Act. We need to examine where we can give teeth to our policies through GRB.

It has been said that if you feed a man you feed an individual, if you feed a woman, you feed a nation. GRB is essential to accomplishing our objective of poverty eradication. The goals of the Department of Social Development cannot be achieved if women and girls are left behind it is time we put our money where our mouth is and invest in gender equality.
Thank you.

Issued by: The Department of Social Development
18 February 2008