Communiqué 
Issued by Participants at a Four-Day Workshop

Towards a Gender Sensitive Budget Initiative for Nigeria: 
A Government – Civil Society Training Interface

Held at The Women Development Centre, Ogba, Lagos
From 7 to 11 July 2002

The 37 participants at the workshop were drawn from civil society groups, the media and relevant government representatives in Southern Nigeria, while resource persons were drawn from the Academia, International organisations, Private sector and Government.

The workshop which was organised by the Centre for Democracy & development (CDD) and sponsored by Heinrich Boell foundation, had the following objectives:

To build a critical mass of civil society organisations that understand issues of poverty, and the feminisation of poverty. A mass that can understand, analyse & monitor the budget as a tool for national development. Other objectives were building a civil society that can engage in advocacy work towards a gender sensitive budgeting initiative in Nigeria. Civil society that have links with and insight into the governmental process at the local, state and federal levels as well as an international & development perspective to issues of budgeting from a gender perspective.

Issues and Concerns

• The workshop noted with concern, the following critical scenarios in Nigeria:

• There is the absence of budget analysis from a gender perspective in the conception, preparation and implementation stages of budgeting in Nigeria.

• The budgetary process in Nigeria currently lacks openness, transparency and accountability.

• The 1999 Constitution does not make provisions for participatory budgeting.

• The civil society lacks access to information with which to engage with stakeholders for advocacy on budgets.

• There is an absence of an effective budget monitoring mechanism.

• There exists a disconnect between the private sector, civil societies, government and the academia on issues of budgeting and budget analysis.

Workshop recommendations

The workshop, calls upon government to ensure:

• Affirmative action right from the level of budget conception, preparation, implementation up to control and evaluation.

• The interaction of the care economy with the market economy must be recognized when designing government budgets.

• That Machinery is put in place to facilitate communication and collaborations between the ministries of Women Affairs and other relevant ministries during budget preparations, monitoring and evaluations.

• Ministries of women Affairs are given separate budgetary allocations from other departments such as youth, sport, culture etc.

• The content of social action and economic empowerment programmes within each line Ministry’s budget is increased so as to meet both basic and strategic needs of women and men.

• Partnership between the government and civil society groups at every stage of the budget cycle.

Civil Society in turn must ensure that:

• Concerted efforts are made to ensure that gender sensitive women and men represent women’s concerns at budgetary levels.

• Communities are mobilized for participation in the budget process.

• Constitutional amendment process must reflect the need to have clear parameters of due process that recognize gender sensitive budgeting.

• There is an interface between civil society, the Academia, The private Sector and the State through research and advocacy programmes for gender sensitive budgeting.

• The media is utilized for budget awareness creation towards mobilization of the mass of Nigerians.

• A budget monitoring and evaluation network is established in Nigeria.

Signed………………………..

Committee Members

Anthony E.Ebuk Agnes Umukoro Yetunde Oladeinde
WHEDA Community Rights Action Project Global Family Project