MGSE-002: Gender Auditing and Gender Budgting

Gender Auditing and Gender Budgeting is a powerful tool for achieving gender mainstreaming and it is a significant concept in the Gender and Development Studies. It is also a methodology to assist and facilitate the government to bring the gender perspective in the budget. Budget is an important instrument to address the needs of the women, men, girls, boys and children in the society. To ensure benefits reach both women and men, the budget should reflect gender perspectives. Gender Budgeting is not mere allocation of a certain percent of resources for men and women. It is also not an accounting exercise but an ongoing process of keeping a gender perspective in policy/ programme formulation, its implementation and review. The review of gender budgeting could be carried out through gender auditing at the grassroots levels through appropriate participatory tools and techniques. Gender budgeting recognize that men and women perform different roles in society. Due to role differences, their needs are also different. To address the needs of the women and men, the budget also should reflect gender perspectives. Along with addressing needs of the women and men, the national the budget will have a different impact on women and men. When we analyze gender disaggregated data, women lag behind men in all sectors and all levels. By keeping all this in mind, the course gender auditing and gender budgeting was designed. The Course is part of the MA (Gender and Development Studies) as electives and it is offered in the second year.The Course will have specific learning objectives which include:Familiarize the learner about the genesis of gender budgeting at the global and national levels;Enable learners to critically analyze the concepts of gender audit and gender budgeting and its best practices for addressing needs of all genders specifically women and other marginalized sections in the society; andIdentifying innovative policies, practices and programme related to gender audit and gender budgeting.