Gender responsive budgeting is a tool to bring about change

This means persuading policy-makers (government, parliament, civil servants) to think about what impact spending and revenue raising decisions will have on gender equality and to adopt policies that will bring about greater equality between women and men.

So, Gender Responsive Budgeting is not just a method of policy assessment, but of policy improvement.

We have written this casebook from the perspective of a non-government organisation and hope it will be particularly useful for civil society organisations or networks. However, many of the lessons we learned will also be applicable to local or national governments.

On the following pages you will find:

  • An introduction to gender responsive budgeting.
  • Case studies which highlight the lessons that can be learnt from our experiences in the UK.
  • Links to online resources.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to gender responsive budgeting. What we aim to do is to share our experiences at the Women’s Budget Group, the challenges we have faced and how we have tried to overcome them.