Communiqué of a training workshop on gender sensitive budget initiative for civil society and government in Northern Nigeria

From left: Dr Kayode Fayemi, CDD; Otive Igbuzor, CDD; Hajiya Rakiya Momoh,  National Productivity Centre; Hajiya Hajara Autan Yaya, World Bank Poverty Reduction Project; Z.K.A. Bonat, Centre for Population and Good Governance; Mrs. Juliana Joseph, Director ministry of women’s affairs for Kaduna state.

Preamble

The Centre For Democracy And Development, Africa Office, with the support of Heinrich Boell Foundation of Germany, held a training workshop on "Gender Sensitive Budget Initiative for Nigeria, A Civil Society and Government interface in Northern Nigeria," from Sunday 28 July to Thursday 1 August 2002, at the Halal Fountain Hotel, Kaduna. A total of 36 participants, representing Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Governmental organizations, participated at the Training Workshop.

Ten (10) sessions of presentations and discussions were held on several issues related to gender sensitive budgeting, including gender and feminist principles; concepts and dimensions of budgeting from a developmental perspective; planning from a gender perspective; practical budget analysis from a budget perspective; issues and strategies in women’s budget advocacy. The workshop also held a dialogue session on Civil Society and Government’s understanding of the budgeting process, in addition to producing a Plan Of Action.

Observations

Following detailed analysis of the issues raised, the Workshop observed that:

1. Budgets encapsulate the economic and development policies of Government and the priorities of Administrations, and these priorities are reflected in the pattern of resource allocation in the budget. For instance, it was observed that while the Federal Government has regaled the public with talk about poverty alleviation, the same Government made only a token provision of N1billion in the 2002 Appropriation bill to poverty alleviation out of a total sum of over N1trillion. To emphasize where its priorities really lie, the Government is spending over N85 billion on the Abuja National Stadium. Hence, Nigerians, and women in particular, should make it their duty to insist on participating in the budgetary process, to ensure that projects that have direct positive impact on their lives are given priority.

2. Budgets in Nigeria are formulated and prepared by local experts under the direction of external interests, which are not usually in touch with the realities of the lives of the people they design the budgets for. In addition, politicians influence and experts design projects and programmes, which do not usually address the needs of poor people, and especially the needs of women.

3. Women, who constitute the greater proportion of the population, are excluded from the decision making process. Almost exclusively, people who do not have gender perspectives to development and resource allocation make decisions that govern the lives of women.

4. Because of misconceptions and cultural biases, governments and community leaders have often responded negatively to agitations for Women’s Human Rights. The Workshop strongly states that the idea of promoting the rights of women is to ensure equity and justice in the allocation of productive and reproductive roles and resources in our society.

5. The workshop observed that while there are hardly any policies that are gender or class neutral, the makers of policy and budgets assume that the needs of all sectors of society are the same and so design policies and budgets that do not reflect the different needs of men, women and children. For instance, it was observed that conventional economic planners who draw up Nigeria’s budgets do not take cognisance of the contributions of the informal sector to national wealth, and do not therefore make provisions for developing this sector. It is precisely in the informal sector that women predominate economically, and its neglect is a direct neglect of the economic interests of women.

6. Designing and implementing gender-insensitive budgets means that the capacity of women is not developed, which distorts and stunts the development process in Nigeria.

7. It has become habitual for budgets to be prepared late, presented to the legislatures late, and for the legislators to unduly delay passing the Appropriation Acts because of conflicting interests of Politicians. Budgets are hardly implemented according to provisions of the Appropriation Acts. Further, there are hardly any credible budget audits in Nigeria.

8. The Ministries of Women Affairs are seen and treated as tokens of women participation. Hence, these Ministries are poorly funded, and powerful Women Politicians, including First Ladies, hijack their mandates.

Recommendations and Resolutions

1. The Executive and the National Assembly should learn to work in harmony in the interest of the Nation. The two arms should respect their individual constitutional roles.

2. The National Assembly should hasten the passage of the Appropriation bill that has been before it for so long.

3. The National Assembly should also hasten the passage of the Freedom of Information Bill.

4. The Federal, State and Local Governments should, as part of democracy dividends, make deliberate efforts to enable all Nigerians, especially women, to fully participate in the entire budgetary process, at all levels.

5. The Local Government Councils, State Houses of Assembly, and the National Assembly should hold open public hearings on budgets, so that the Executive can justify to the citizens their choices of priorities and their allocation of resources.

6. Chief Executives of Governments at all levels, Executives of Ministries and Parastatals, and the Technocrats should be trained in the preparation of people-oriented and gender-sensitive budgets.

7. The country’s GDP and other macroeconomic indicators should reflect the unpaid contribution of wives, husbands and youths. The Executive and Legislature should allocate resources for developing the informal sector, including the social and care activities at the level of the family.

8. Well informed Nigerians and those with specialized skills and knowledge should be encouraged to participate in the political process and governance at all levels. The requirement for political aspirants to resign their appointments should be reviewed, to provide for leave of absence for those who have full-time jobs.

9. NGOs and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) should engage their elected representatives and the executives, through advocacy and lobbying, in order to mainstream gender into the budgetary process.

10. CSO, CBOs, Citizens and Pressure Groups, Trade Unions and professional associations should monitor budget formulation, preparation, legislation, implementation and auditing from the local to the federal levels.

11. CBOs, CSOs and NGOs need to build their capacities in order to collect, process and disseminate data and information that will serve as inputs for budgets that are pro-poor and pro women.

12. CSOs, NGOs, CBOS and Citizens and corporate organizations should design gender sensitive programmes and projects and encourage their elected representatives to incorporate them into the budgets.

13. Concerted attempts should be made to raise awareness in a critical mass of Women, Women Organisations, and CSOs at local levels, so that they can engage the local and state governments to make budgets at all levels, gender sensitive.

14. Government should allocate more funds, and make them available to the Ministries of Women Affairs at the Federal and State levels.

15. The Federal, State and Local Governments should create Gender focal units in all line ministries. The Ministries of Women Affairs should engage and cooperate with the line ministries to encourage them to allocate more resources to pro-poor and pro-women programmes.

 

Participants list