Background

CDD’s gender budget initiative is a research, training and advocacy initiative which seeks to guide the direction of budgetary allocation and policy formulation by providing law and policy makers with access to data and best practices in Nigeria and elsewhere, on how to design a pro-poor and gender redistributive budget initiative. CDD GBI is an integral part of our activities as a catalyst organisation, which seeks to build capacity of stakeholders towards linking democracy with development.

Goal/ Objectives

CDD is concerned mainly with pro-poor budgeting from a gender perspective. Our broad goal is to facilitate a process of policy development and resource allocation, which responds to gender specific needs.

• To create a mechanism for activists and women in the community to gain knowledge about the equity and effectiveness of government policies and programmes. 
• To increase the equity and the effectiveness of resources allocated to women by government. 
• To develop advocacy skills for critical stakeholders such as women’s organisations and lawmakers. 
• To create access to the strategic institutions that may serve to ensure the desired policy change. This is important for building a critical mass to influence the process, monitor implementation and evaluate the impact of the budget. 
• To facilitate data and information gathering through research on societies where budgeting for women has been institutionalised.

CDD has adopted a two-pronged approach to the challenge of capacity building on budgeting from a gender perspective in Nigeria:

1. Research, in order to put literature about budgeting in the public domain.
2. Sharing information / capacity building with civil society (CS) stakeholders in order to demystify the conception of budgeting as a strictly technical issue, and to encourage contextual engagement with the budget process. 
3. We hope that research and information sharing will strengthen the base for informed advocacy on budgeting in Nigeria. 
4. For greater effect and reach, this engagement must begin with a bottom-up approach, i.e. that local communities can make their voices heard on critical arenas.

In Nigeria, especially through the military years, votes on resource allocations and policies targeted at fighting poverty and alleviation of the socio-economic conditions of the majority of Nigerians is an annual budgetary event. However the perspective of these policies has presumed a similarity in equity in terms of access to resources for women and men in Nigeria. Examples of such policies are state agriculture and education policies. This assumption does not appreciate the patriarchal nature of our societies with the accompanying hierarchies, and culture and power dynamics, which alienate women. A solution to this gap lies in gender-sensitive budgetary votes, which demonstrate an awareness of the disadvantaged position of women at all levels of planning, from the local to the state and finally to the federal level. Addressing the question of how policies and budgetary allocations adequately address the needs of women, presupposes a gender perspective to budgeting.

What is a Gender Budget?

A gender budget does not presuppose a separate budget for women. Rather it means that the exercise of budgeting must be gender responsive. That is to say – every input that goes into the budget should be assessed for its effect on women as care givers, income earners and community organisers, effectively also benefiting men and children. Also, a gender budget does not presuppose that focus will only be made on that aspect of the budget that provides for women, e.g. the women’s ministry. What it means is that all segments of the budget must be analysed for their impact on the lives of women. By virtue of women’s interconnecting roles, what happens to women also impacts on children, the aged, and men. Poverty, lack of access to health, employment, and education would invariably have a negative impact on the lives of women and consequently, that of the family.

Women as caregivers increasingly bear the burden of poverty in their families. They provide health care services to sick members of their families who should have been receiving medical attention in hospital, and many spend over 6 hours daily in search of potable drinking water. Women also spend many productive hours in search of firewood or other sources of energy. These activities represent major aspects of the economy because it is this unpaid domestic work of women that sustains families, nurtures children, and prepares men’s mental and physical energies so that they are ready for the marketplace where labour is rewarded with income. Though unpaid, women’s work in the home actually sustains life and our economy.

It is therefore important to examine how policies, programmes and processes are structured so that women’s energies are not neglected but rather are managed in order to preserve their total well-being and effectively the well-being of the nation. It is also important to look into how their time could be freed to allow room for other endeavours such as active political participation. A policy and resource allocation process that recognises the unique position of women in subsidising the state is relevant for the attainment of this ideal.

Our focus though, must perforce include the planning, policy programming, and monitoring aspects of budgeting, because this is the cycle that gives rise to monetary allocation and determines whether or not resources actually reach the audience for whom they are meant.

The trajectory of CDD gender budget initiative (GBI)

• July 2002: Held civil society – government line-managers interface on budget knowledge in northern and southern Nigeria 
• August 2002: Together with the Shelter Rights Initiative, represented the civil society at the Federal Government Pre-budget Summit 
• February 2003: Held a budget knowledge dialogue in collaboration with the office of the Special Assistant to the President on Budget Matters providing an avenue for a better understanding of the budgeting process and expectations on both sides regarding the budgeting process. The budget knowledge seminar, which drew participation from senior officials from the legislative and executive arms of government, provided information and data on the budgeting process. Summary report is at press.
• February 2003: The methodology seminar, which drew participation from a cross section of civil society actors, the academia, labour, and the media, sought to analyse the budget from a gender perspective. A comprehensive report of the seminars has been compiled.
• Conducted research on agriculture and education. Findings from education will be utilised to influence policy at the public hearing. 
• Public hearing held to present findings on education research. We are presently conducting research on the agriculture sector. 
• We are currently working on an ABC of budget knowledge for Nigeria. This is a handbook on the concepts and process of budgeting in Nigeria for civil society for building civil society capacity to engage with the budget process. 
• We are also supporting a gender budget network which will be formally launched in 2004.

Rationale for a Public Hearing on Education

Policies and attendant resource allocations are most useful when they respond to a dynamic process, which reflects emerging realities. These realities can be better understood from the perspectives of research into the impact of policies on the majority of poor people, in this case education policies. The role of the resource allocation process therefore would be to harmonise the differing voices through an outline of priority policy objectives that reflect the aspiration of the majority voiceless populace. Education is a fundamental building block for an informed and aware society. We anticipate that the joint CDD / National Assembly public hearing will be a dialogue space, which will address the questions of the impact of education on boys and girls, quality of education as well as existing gaps and desired policy steps.

Outcomes

• Agreed increased spending on strategic budget heads under education in the 2004 budget. 
• Initiate bill on budget laws stipulating due process for budget making and implementation. 
• Emergence of the Nigeria budget Group.

Outputs

• Published research findings. 
• Joint communiqué. 
• Policy brief to guard the work of the relevant committees of the national assembly.