Allocate more for gender specific projects: experts

Experts yesterday underscored the need for greater allocation in the national budget for gender specific projects.

They also urged the relevant parties to take necessary initiatives to reduce the gender gap through the implementation of development projects with an aim to ensure women empowerment.

They made these comments while addressing a webinar styled "An Analysis of Gender Sensitive Budgeting: Bangladesh Perspective", jointly organised by the South Asian Network for Economic Modeling (Sanem) and Bangladesh Mahila Parishad.

Fauzia Moslem, president of the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, said gender sensitive budgeting can significantly contribute to ensuring gender equality in the country.

She went on to express dissatisfaction over the fact gender budget reports had not been published in the last two national budgets.

The economic empowerment of women does not only mean employing more women, rather it depends on how issues related to women development and their progress are addressed in the national budget.

Sanem Executive Director Selim Raihan said issues regarding women empowerment and rights are well acknowledged in policy documents like the Eighth Five-Year Plan and the national budget.

However, this is not enough.

The most important thing is to see whether the commitments mentioned in those policy documents are properly implemented, he said.

Sanem, in collaboration with Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, had conducted a study on gender sensitive budgeting.

Sanem Research Director Sayema Haque, who is also a professor of economics at the University of Dhaka, focused on different aspects and key challenges of gender budgeting.

She said the country has attained some big positive achievements in ensuring gender equality in different sectors like gross enrolment in primary and secondary education. Still though, women are still lagging behind in higher education and vocational and technical programmes as well as per capital mobile and internet use.

Mentioning that women's participation in the labour force has increased manifold, she said some challenges still remain.

Referring to a World Bank report from 2020, Haque said male participation in the labour force was 80.3 per cent in rural areas while the female participation rate was only 38.6 per cent.

She also informed that 47 per cent of the country's women are of working age but are not educated and lack access to employment and training compared to the rate of males at 10 per cent.

This is a matter of concern, Hauqe said.

Gender budgeting can introduce gender sensitivity across all levels of policy implementation and thereby address the existing fault lines. 

Haque identified some key challenges to gender budgeting, including lack of gendered disaggregated data on beneficiaries and impacts, and discontinuation of certain important gender specific projects.

Several ministries with greater budgetary allocation spend proportionately less on gender-specific projects, she said, adding that some ministries with a greater share of gender specific allocations are relatively small in terms of budgetary allocation along with implementation capacity.

She recommended preparing gender-segregated data and strengthening the monitoring and evaluation of projects aimed at making gender budgeting successful.

Haque also suggested that the finance ministry should have a cell composed of gender experts, researchers, and practitioners to help prepare and monitor gender budgeting.

Selima Ahmad, president of the Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said apart from increasing budgetary allocations, the government also needs to ensure proper implementation.

Most females in rural areas still face problems like child marriage and drop out in higher education, she said. 

Sharmind Neelormi, a professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, and Samanjar Chowdhury, the Brac Youth Platform Operations lead, also spoke at the event.