Gender Budgeting: A tool for gender mainstreaming in Bangladesh

Abstract

The nation’s budget is a policy instrument through which government implements its fiscal policies. In a democratic system, budget is a major election campaign toll for public policies declarations by the political parties during their election champagne. Therefore budget is also a toll for ensuring government’s accountability and transparency to its constituency. Through the budget government identifies the sources of its income and allocates its income for various expenditures. Every year the governments formulate its budget and present it to the people and get it approved in the parliament. In the formulation and the presentation of the national budget there needs to be particular mention of women or men, poor or rich, in terms of how benefit from public expenditures. It is an important question to ask how government expenditures are benefiting women’s advancement through the activities of all sectors/Ministries/Divisions/Departments/Agencies thus unbundling the national budget from a gender perspective.