Appraising Gender Responsive Budgeting: Do women’s priorities matter?

Emmanuel Kashaija

In the intricate tapestry of fiscal planning, the allocation of resources speaks volumes about societal priorities. As Uganda navigates the complexities of economic recovery and social equity in the aftermath of the Covid-19 global crises, the question of whether Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is still a priority looms large.

Ugandans received the FY2024/25 Shs72 trillion national budget amid high anticipation for transformative and equitable service delivery. The high figure caused both hope and exacerbated worry among citizens about its financing amidst a growing debt burden. There is also a sense of worry emanating from the President’s speech in which he said that the budget had been hijacked.

We, in the women’s movement, look to this budget with a keen eye for the many promises made to promote gender equality and gender-responsive service delivery for citizens. Some of the notable promises include the provision of free sanitary pads to promote girls’ education; the construction of government secondary schools in each sub-county to ease access to education; upgrading all HC-IIs to HC-IIs to bring maternal health services closer and, lifting women out of poverty through targeted initiatives like PDM and GROW.

The FY2024/25 national budget is monumental, as it marks the final financial year of implementing the 3rd National Development Plan (NDP-III). During its reading, we were particularly interested in hearing about the efforts of fast-tracking key NDP-III projects, especially those that have a direct bearing on the lives and livelihoods of women and girls. Whereas the NDP-III had 69 core projects spread across the 20 programmes, the recently concluded MTR revealed that only 20 (29%) were on track.

One of the key projects gender-responsive service delivery and gender equality is the Community Mobilisation & Mind-set Change (CMMC) programme. It was conceived to “empower families, communities and citizens to embrace national values and actively participate in sustainable development”. It directly contributes to the NDP-III goal of increased household incomes and quality of life through increased participation, productivity, inclusiveness, and social well-being of the population.

Important to note, the CMMC programme is responsible for, among other things, effective community mobilisation and sensitisation of citizens to reduce the negative cultural practices and attitudes that are major contributors to the rampant gender injustices including, GBV/SGBV.

Some of the fruits of the CMMC programme extend to CSO and in 2020, through GPAP, Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) trained local leaders to handle SGBV cases and deliver services that are sensitive to women’s and children’s peace needs. That is because in Uganda, the LC1 chairperson is the first focal point for more than 90% of female survivors of SGBV. However, the office is predominantly occupied by men who take patriarchal positions when handling such cases.

Muhammed Ssemujju, the LC1 vice chairperson Nakaseeta Cell, Busimbi Division, Mityana District speaks of the benefits of the training,
“Unlike before, when we hurriedly passed judgement in cases brought to us, now I categorise cases and make referrals based on the survivor’s support needs. The training also empowered me to understand the category of cases to handle at the village level and those that need to be referred to the police or probation office.”

Therefore, mind-set change is crucial to help in the fight. However, there is need to do more because the 2023 Police crime report shows 14,681 cases of domestic violence and 14,846 sex-related violence cases.

Moreover, mid-term NDP-III evaluation revealed that only 17% of the targets had been attained halfway into its implementation. Over the course of the NDP, we have continually expressed concern about the government’s inadequate investment in key gender equality machinery, especially the meagre financing of the plan’s ‘CMMC Programme’.

In the upcoming budget, only Shs70.4b of the projected Shs982b in the NDP-III was availed for CMMC representing a -93% funding gap, making it nearly impossible to achieve the set targets. The huge programme funding gap has been persistent over the years with a -92%, -91% and -96% variance between NDP-III public financing targets and actual allocations for FY2021/22, FY2022/23, and FY2023/24 respectively.

The huge funding discrepancy has left many of the programme’s planned interventions unimplemented, leading to the country’s dismal performance in areas such as GBV/SGBV prevalence, prevention of under-age pregnancies, girl child education, and women’s Sexual & Reproductive Health Rights.

How then will communities and family members embrace the fact that GBV is not a way of life but a danger to the victims? How will they understand that silence only perpetrates the crime and is not a way to keep the family’s dignity? The answer lies within the budget. Policymakers and lawmakers must prioritize and allocate sufficient funds to ensure the effective implementation of gender-responsive programs.

The writer is a Gender and Economic Justice Programme Manager – Forum for Women in Democracy.