Developing capacity of public institutions to formulate gender
sensitive plans and budgets: Uganda’s Experience
A presentation by
FORUM FOR WOMEN IN DEMOCRACY
Mukunda Julius Mugisha, Senior Program Director
Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE)
Kampala, Uganda
julius.mukunda@fowode.org
2013 United Nations Public Service Forum Day and
Awards Ceremony
“Transformative e-Government and Innovation:
Creating a Better Future for All”
24-27 June 2013
Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain
Background
GRB started in Uganda in 1999
But gained momentum in 2004 with
increased numbers of technocrats
trained in GRB
Background
In 2006/07 government came on board with the
introduction of Budget Call circular directive on Gender
Budgeting
In 2010 /11 the National development plan (NDP) agreed
and made gender inequality as one of the key five bidding
constraints to national development in Uganda
Recent institutional Developments
for GRB in Uganda
Operationalization of the Equal Opportunity Commission
(EOC)
• A constitutional body charged with dealing with issues of inequality in the
country
Organizing and mobilizing Parliamentarians into a GRB
champions groups
Recent institutional Developments
for GRB in Uganda
Development of Training
manuals and programs
• Spearheaded by the ministry of
finance Planning and economic
Development
• Establishment of a Postgraduate
diploma in Gender and Local
development
Recent institutional Developments
for GRB in Uganda
Establishment of Master degree in
gender Aware Economics.
• The first in the world of its kind, aims to
generate a new cadre of economists who are
able to integrate gender equality as a
parameter in economic analysis, policies and
budgets.
Recent institutional Developments
for GRB in Uganda
Generation of Gender disaggregated
data by Ministry of Finance
Conducting participatory gender
Audits for 5 sectors of the
economy including Ministry of
finance
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
This has taken several forms
• Duration and quick fixes
• one day workshop to five day intensive
training organized mainly by NGOs
• They have helped where there is
scarcity of resources
• Need to deal with emergencies
• Need to have basics to help achieve
short term results
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
Content development
• structured training programs organized by training
Institutions such ESAMI(East, South African
Management Institute)
• Structured training program by UNDP’s GEPMI
program (Gender and Economic Policy
Management Initiative )
• Tanzania Gender an Macroeconomics Program
organized by TGNP
• Academic programs such as the post graduate
diploma and Master Degrees at Makerere
University
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
Content development for GRB in Uganda
5 Corrective Feed Back
The five step approach
1. Gender Situational analysis
2. Gender Policy Analysis
3. Gender Budget Analysis
4. Gender Budget Monitoring
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
The GEPMI
• The three-week course on GenderResponsive Economic Policy
Management aims at providing
policymakers and development
practitioners with the required skills and
• knowledge that are needed to identify
and address gender biases in the
economic sectors and to analyze
economic policies and budgets from a
gender perspective
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
TARGET PARTICIPANTS
• The course targets economic
policymakers, development planners,
researchers, in particular middle and high
level public and private sectors officials,
civil society organisations and other
officials engaged in gender advocacy who
want to increase their capacity to analyse
and mainstream gender issues in
economic policy formulation and
management.
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
EXPECTED SKILLS UPON COMPLETION
• The course enhances gender awareness in
economic policy formulation and
implementation and also sharpens the
understanding of participants on the links
between gender and economic policy
formulation and management.
• The course makes it possible for participants
to become familiar with the analysis and use
of gender concepts, tools and strategies
especially in the economic sectors.
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
Fostering an enhanced conceptual
understanding of gender concepts in
economic policy design, implementation and
evaluation,
Expected
skills upon
completion
include:
Enabling participants to acquire knowledge
and expertise to formulate, implement,
monitor, and evaluate policies, programmes
and budgets from a gender perspective;
Providing participants with knowledge and
expertise to mainstream a gender perspective
in national development policy dialogue and
planning as well as in international
negotiations;
Providing an opportunity to share relevant
experiences and materials among participants
from different national economic structures.
Building Capacities of Public Institutions in
GRB
• The course consists
of standard
modules, and one
COURSE
writing module that
CONTENT
involve the drafting
of individual or team
papers.
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
 COURSE CONTENT
 Key components of the modules include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Gender and Economics
Gender-responsive policy analysis
Unpaid care work
Gender, data and indices
Employment and labor markets
Gender and poverty
Gender and Macroeconomics
Gender and macroeconomic strategies in Africa, part I
Gender and macroeconomic strategies in Africa, part II
Gender and trade
Gender and access to finance
Public finance and gender-responsive budgeting
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
COURSE
CONTENT
The GEPMI looks at gender in economics compressively
We no longer need to look at budget rather we need to look at
what drives and influences the budgets
GEMPI also attempts to support that belief that if public service is
of quality and adequate gender inequality may also reduced
GEMPI looks at the fundamentals that can address the root on
fixing the economy and gender can be integrated
GEPMI departs from the norm of looking at how governments
generates revenues and how resources are allocated
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
Target groups
• The Target groups in Uganda are
• The government technocrats:
• these get training specifically on how to integrate
gender in the planning and budgeting processes
• Usually a lot of time is spent on development of
gender issues and how they can be addressed using
existing available resources
• Generation of gender disaggregated data is key and a
key message given
• The CSOs
• These get training majorly on budget advocacy
• Most of the time is spent t on understanding the
budget and the budget process
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
Target groups
 The Communities
 We have discovered that when communities are
organized, mobilized and empowered serviced delivery
improves and corruption in harder to sustain
 We have introduced in Uganda the concept of Village
Budget Clubs
 These are groups of grassroots women and men who are
training in gender budget monitoring and service
delivery tracking
Building Capacities of Public
Institutions in GRB
 The group is charged with monitoring money
flow into their community and how it has been
utilized
 The groups monitors government facilities to
find out how resources are being utilized
 The groups organizes the communities at
larger and share their experiences in the
budget monitoring exercises
 The groups interfaces with duty bearers on the
issues raised during
Challenges of building Capacities
of Public Institutions on GRB
Staff turn over and redeployment
Inability of senior decision makers to attend GRB training sessions
Inadequate training materials and research on gender and economics
Gender considered as “simple” subject which can be mastered in weeks if not
days
Economics is language of exclusion
There is no stand alone curriculum
Most gender activists have inadequate economics background
Conclusion
Investing in capacity development
initiatives is crucial in fighting gender
inequality. Whereas most of the training
initiative have focused on policy makers, its
now time to look at grassroots
communities.. When communities are
organized and trained in gender budgeting
corruption is harder to sustain and service
delivery improves.