Nalini Burn, Regional Advisor GRB,
North Africa SRO
How are institutional actors at the state and local level
interconnected in shaping patterns of gender equality and access
to services in different local contexts?
 Where responsibility for service provision is shared amongst local
and other levels of government, at what level are gender concerns
dealt with most effectively?
 What institutional mechanisms can facilitate planning, budgeting
and delivery of services in a gender responsive manner?
 How can planning and budgeting systems integrate gender
equitable requirements? (examples of planning and budgeting
frameworks and processes that have ensured effectiveness of local
government in addressing gender equality issues)?
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Gender equity is about the
‘equivalence in life outcomes
for women and men,
recognizing their different
needs and interests, and
requiring a redistribution of
power and resources’. (IDS,
2000).
› Issues :contested meanings
of equity, some of which
reproduce existing gender
roles and relationship, and
some ‘proper’
redistribution

Gender justice is defined by
the ending of, and the
provision of redress for,
inequalities between women
and men that result in women’s
subordination to men.
› As an outcome it is about
access and control over
resources, combined with
agency, which is the ability to
make choices and decisions
› As process, it is about
accountability to redress
injustice
 (Goetz 2007).
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Dilemma of citizenship for women. Not a one to
one relationship between citizen and state.
 Women’s relationship to the state is specifically
through kinship and particularistic groupings –
colonial construction, hardened and codified in
overlap of statutory, customary and religious
systems of law - ‘Grounded and situated for women whose lived
experiences are mediated by race, ethnicity,
family connections, status in social hierarchies
and economic status.’

› ( Celestine Nyamu –Musembi 2008)

Implications for principle of subsidiarity, for
exercise of political power
4
Short accountability route
Citizens
Elected
representatives
Service delivery
Plan, Budget and
administration(
includes tax and
land)
Nalini Burn
5
• M&Esystem
• Sex-disaggregated
data AND other
variables of
discrimination
rimination
Priorisation
• Representative and
participatory democracy
• Informed by diagnosis,
• Institutional analysis:
roles, mandates and
competencies, procedures
Diagnostic
Nalini Burn
• A local development plan
and its translation into
• A local budget plan
• Participatory monitoring of
plans and budget
• Accountability mechanisms
Programming/
monitoring
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Who and what shapes Decentralisation and local
governance (DLG)?
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Decentralisation:
Two broad prescriptive
forces
1. Normative policy
transfer: is good (the
pros):
› political, fiscal and
administrative

2.Part of political and
economic
liberalisation(state
failure, market virtues)-
› governance + liberalisation
› Competition and choice in
politics and economy

Dynamics of policy process
› of a top down policy transfer
+ funds transfer and
› forms of either partnership
or resistance, obstruction,
accommodation,
instrumentalising in pursuit
of own objectives: elite
capture) contested,
ambivalent terrain of
decentralisation
› Rather technocratic
approach to delivering good
governance
› Underfunded mandates
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Local
Development
Local
Governance
Local Planning
and Budgeting
Nalini Burn
• Local , provincial, regional council
• Urban and land use planning
• Sectoral ministries
• Private local enterprises
• Mutinational businesses
• Multiple actors Local Council
• Deconcentrated sectoral Services
• NGOs , CBOs , committees
• Agencies
• Local council
• Local administration
• Central ministries
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Complex realities: Top down and bottom up planning,
budgeting, context specific, evolving
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MDG
MDG
Poverty Reduction Strategy
Sector/line

Macro,
Budget ,GBS?

SWAPs,
baskets
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LG
LLG
LLG
hard top-down
budget
constraint,IPF
block, sectoral
grant
(conditional)
IGA fund

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No wish list planning, so linked to
budget constraint,
How does the reconciling of top
down and bottom-up happen?*
Scope for intersectoral approach,
local level?
Bounded sphere of
ParticipatoryP&B, using CDD
approach
So felt need to have earmarked
Funds for national MDG/PRS
priorities at LG level
Issue: limited localising of MDGs,
Issue :MDGs are sector based and
practised…
Issue whose indicators to use:
MDG/PRS/sector related
Who sets criteria and priorities for
ranking and prioritising?
Conditional block grants
Reduced scope for planning at LG
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Entry points for GELD numerous, but scope?
Min EcoFin
Min Intérieur
Sectoriels
Echelles gouvernements/CL
Province
Planification District
Faible gendérisation à
ces niveaux
Secteur
cellules
Document de cadrage
budgétaire au niveau
district: ressources
locales,+transferts
intergouvernementaux +
partenaires techniques et
financiers
cellules
villages
Village
villages
Nalini Burn
•Dans la pratique, ascendante est
une consolidation des plans de
plusieurs cellules.
•Planification sectorielle au
niveau des divisions
administratives provinciales et
communales
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Aligning budgets to evidenced –based policy for
gender-responsive service delivery and results:
avoiding policy evaporation.
Macroeconomic
framework
1.
Situation
analysis, Review
2 Standards, MDG
goals /targets
8.Monitoring
,Reporting, auditing
3.Policy Priorities
Gender equitable
Processes &
Outcomes
4.Strategic sectoral
planning
7. Budget execution
& Service Delivery
6.Budget
appropriations
5. Budget
preparation
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Policy evaporation:Budget execution , implementation

Cash management system for disbursement
› evaporation of planning& budget allocations (authorised, despite
bottom-up), and the protection of administrative, HR expenditure.
another rationale for gender equitable earmarked funds)

Process
› How it happens and actors involved. Where does the accountability
lie, the reporting and monitoring requirements weak. Underlying
political economy issues.

Disbursement delays
› expenditure chain from Ministry of Finance,
› scope for local revenue generation and retention.

Service delivery.
› Implications for its undermining.
› Who to hold to account in the chain and for what?
 What should the front line staff be held to account for, when their
salaries are late and there is no provisioning for supplies
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Informal Donor Working group on decentralisation and
local governance guiding principles ( Nov 2008) DLG: will
address sectoral/swap constraint to DLG, are aware of
political economy issues, World Bank evaluation
 Harmonisation: UNCDF Local Development Fund +
partnership with other development partners
 Actors will work with: Local government associations and
Partnerships of state and DP partners ( UCLGA, MDP etc)
 Enlarging fiscal space: association of tax commissioners in
Africa – to address aid dependency, capital flight etc.)
 Aligning political+ fiscal + administrative decentralisation
(example Morocco constitutional and regionalisation
reform)

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Grassroots woman
:
How can
we
question
what these
people are
doing when
we do not
even know
what they
have in the
planning
document?’

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Woman councillor in Paidha Town, Uganda:
We refused to pass the budget
of this financial year because
we could not see something
specifically for affirmative
action.
We only relented when we
were assured and shown that
our concerns were captured
under the various sectors –
health, education, and
production – where specific
budget lines were made for
women’s special needs’
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Mandates
What women leaders need
to be able to do:
Identify women’s concerns
Sensitise and mobilise
women on national issues
Linking women in the
community and the
decision-makers and
mobilising resources for
women concerns
Participate in planning
processes
Advocate for women’s
rights
Monitor service delivery
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Challenges
No skills
Denial of rights, obstruction, shelved off
from policy space
Status quo benefits a few officials
Need for challenging existing power
structures
Strategy
Collective mobilisation:
awareness, civic engagement, alliance
building
Negotiation, political organisation,
mobilise constituency, generate factual
and relevant information
Create a harmonised budget cycle and
women leaders’ engagement tool
Ongoing learning by doing, takes time, resources, yields results… Each of skills
and results generate performance indicators, on the voice side
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South Africa:
Strong national guidelines are
needed
› For women as contractors and
›
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›
›
›
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workers and to benefit
Contestation of women in local
politics
Difficult to get in as ward
councillors, representation
comes from insistence of parties
Women in participatory
processes but not in decisionmaking
Local councils assign low
priority to gender
IDP LED: none looked at LED
Women are very present in
committees related to their
needs, usually chaired by a man
Hostile institutional
environment

Morocco:
Constitutional and
Decentralisation/regionalisation
reform
 Constitution: rights-based and
primacy of international rights
instruments
 Regionalisation and legal-backed
linkages and transfers among
levels of government
 No devolution of mandates
without devolution of funds

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Incentive-based grants transfer performance system
› Check list of indicators for gender mainstreaming- gender
analysis, disaggregated data; gender impact analysis and
annual allocations- maximum score of 10 out of 190;
› + or – 20%; capacity-building grant
› District level gender policies pioneered by FOWODE: annual
Gender Aware Budget Plans [GAPB], using the Local
Government Guidelines, but with no extra funds provision
(50% of districts); monitoring indicators
› Field lessons :Community development officers: difficulty of
fulfilling mandates for gender mainstreaming without
dedicated funds
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Performance Indicators built into LG’s own PPB
indicators.
Performance-linked grants: difficult to get off ground
because of data difficulties, hence need to address it with
LG-Based Community Based Monitoring System CBMS.
Then build in incentives to use the more refined data as
part of performance-linked part of the grant
Also link performance-part of grant to indicators of
downward and horizontal accountability
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India, Philippines, Indonesia, China:
 Focus CSOs – Budget advocacy , analysis and
accountability local media networks, (voice)
 Reform of social safety nets in Communitybased and driven development + conditional
money transfers (using disaggregated data )
 Indonesia: Musrenbang: elaboration of MOU
et Decrees between local state and civil society
actors ( 11 points +indicators to attain status
of gender equality sub-district)

Nalini Burn
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A rights-based approach starting with
building ability to claim rights, can work
even in settings with political quota, budget
quota, and possibly elite driven- including
women elites
 Awareness of rights, compared to actual
state of affairs in terms of rights

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After the project, against baseline conditions,
› Women’s Council Executive effectiveness had increased
by 78%
› Women’s participation in planning process by 68%
› LLG responsiveness by 63% but
› LLG transparency and accountability by 6%
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Technical and advisory support throughout, in planning
meetings, as interlocutors,
 Importance of political skill building for women, as well as
women-only deliberations
 Importance of building notion of accountability to
constituents – how to demonstrably reach to grassroots
women
 Importance of using a tool such as a gender responsive
audit to assess performance, along dimensions of
capacity: 1 .awareness, 2. effectiveness and 3.
empowerment - influencing change
 Critical importance of human-rights based awareness,
ability to claim rights
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Community Based monitoring System for planning and
budgeting ( district level representative surveys + LLG
rotating CBMS
› Political economy analysis , inclusive livelihood analysis –
especially unpaid work - cross cutting issues of climate change,
food and economic insecurity, human security, integrating
physical/body integrity, VAW, using engendered statistical systems
and processes principles- not only sex-disaggregated data, but also
other inequality-relevant data; gender –sensitive expenditure and
revenue analysis
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Qualitative fine grained context-specific research
System not a questionnaire, includes participatory
analysis and assessments, scope for narratives of change
and qualitative indicators to interpret quantitative ones
Example of Morocco in ongoing fusion of Communal
Information System and gender-responsive CBMS
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Information and communication are part of infrastructure –resources
for development, and for LDF to fund + others
Not aligning components but a rights-results chain of how
infrastructure underpins development outcomes ( CEDAW+ CSECR)
 Maternal mortality: why? What are the factors? Where to get
information from? What output to get outcomes? (
participatory planning and budgeting)
Infrastructure in context of crises and poverty reduction:
› addressing care economy and unpaid work constraints, labour
intensive programmes linked to achieving social sector outcomes;
› using notion of sustaining the means to produce, to cover
reversing soil erosion, desertification, climate change adaptation
and resilience
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Capacity development budget to be used not so much in sectorspecific areas but in cross-cutting areas of LG precisely in gender
equitable planning and budgeting training for duty-bearers ( also rec.
50 ILO)
Information baseline is cross-cutting expenditure and revenue-raising
at district level, but rotating Community-based Monitoring System
(CBMS )at LLG level (attract resources from other development
partners)
Capacity development ongoing learning by doing facilitation (
supporting technical and advisory agencies), based on lessons learned
from AFARD, Uganda and others.
Build on /consolidating linking council executives and staff to LG
associations, national, sub-regional, regional and world-wide, for peer
to peer learning and experience sharing networks . Also rec. 55 of
IDRC Mexico Conference
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Collective practices: consensus cooperation,
commitment to participation

Responsiveness: Important not to marginalise
men
Mobilising grassroots women: local information
and communication materials
 Radio talk, facilitation in closed door budget
meetings
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Issue of political quota, “budget “quota, segmentation along the lines
of separate and unequal but considered equitable and non threatening
of existing order, which then gets further legitimised ( have achieved
30% seats, 30% budget allocation) has to be seriously addressed.
GELD must be linked to a robust national GRB, fully claiming the
application of new aid modalities-Accra including human rights,
environment, gender justice on the one hand, as well as UN System
and other response to Crises, also tracking and addressing new
investment flows ( Non OECD-DAC) attracted to resource extraction –
cross-border farming, sovereign funds, and also climate change
mitigation and adaptation funds
Strategic alliances built on social, economic and cultural rights and
local development approaches, emphasising LG-LG, south-south
collaboration and networking, climate change adaptation and
resilience, cooperatives/collective action, social protection floor and
surveillance, vulnerability monitoring as well as vulnerability funds
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