The Gender Budgeting Manual, published by the Department of Planning and Coordination, Government of Nagaland, which was released on 15th August 2011 by the Chief Minister of Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio, is an attempt to ensure gender equality and justice in programs implemented at the local level within the mandate of the Local Government. The manual aims to ensure that the outcome of all process and programs of Local Government are shared equally between men and women.
The manual is intended for elected representatives, policy makers, administrators, decision makers, technical experts, academicians and all those who are not only involve but also closely associated with the process of planning and implementation at various levels. It contains tools, methods and indicators to help in gender based planning and implementation of programs and plans across departments. The approach to local level planning is to find solutions to local level planning. This manual gives gender guidance, methodology and tools, which can be adopted or modified based on diverse experiences, need and level of knowledge of those who use it.
The Gender Budgeting Manual gives a brief summary of the conditions and status of women in Nagaland and highlights the need of gender planning. The book also discusses on women’s component plan and gender budgeting and auditing.
An understanding of gender and its related concept constitutes an important pre-requisite for gender based planning. What is Gender? Gender as explained in the manual is a part of the broader socio-cultural context, refers to social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relationships between women and those between men. Gender determines what is expected, allowed and valued in women or men in a given context. In most societies, there are differences and inequalities between men and women in responsibilities assigned, activities undertaken, access to and control over resources, as well as decision making opportunities.
The Manual brings to light:
“It was only after Statehood and after joining the National planning process mid-way through the Third Five Year Plan (1961 - 1966) that the developmental process actually began to take shape in Nagaland. A comparative picture of Human Development Indices (HDI) across Nagaland shows that the State has a total population of 19,88,636 (census 2001) with a total female population of 9,46,950 (47.6%). The Total Fertility Rate stood at 3.77% (All India 2.85%). Nagaland has a Literacy Rate of 67.11% (All India 65.20%) as per the 2001 Census, where the Literacy Rate for Female is 61.90% (All India 54.03%). The percentage of women in the State involved in agriculture is 38.20% while 90.80% are involved in social service. The Human Development Indices for Nagaland was 0.623 as against 0.472 for India (2001). The State’s good performance and ranking can best be understood by looking at the constituents of the indices and the factors that influence them, including literacy, health status and income level. The per capita income for Nagaland during 2000 – 2001 is almost equal to the All India average. The social framework of Nagaland has placed formal education as a prized asset. Within Nagaland Dimapur has the highest HDI (0.733) followed closely by Mokokchung (0.71). Mon has the lowest HDI (0.45), which is less than the national average (0.472). The ranking of the district is directly to the position of the districts with District Domestic Product (DDP).
“The Gender Related Development Index (GDI) for Nagaland is 0.420 as against 0.623 for HDI. Adjusted for gender inequality, the performance of Kohima is better that all the other districts in human development indicators followed by Dimapur, Mokokchung and Phek. The first district also has higher HDI than other districts of the State. Zunheboto, Tuensang and Mon form the bottom of the developmental pyramid in the State. These districts have had lower incomes, literacy rates and enrolment that the rest of the State. The health infrastructure in these districts is inadequate, impacting the health and overall longevity of the people.
“The Human Poverty Index (HPI) of the State has come down in successive Plans from 49.37% in 1981 to 35.58% in 2001. The value of the HPI is lowest in Mokokchung followed by Zunheboto and Wokha. The bigger town of the State (Kohima and Dimapur) are ranked fourth and fifth respectively, indicating that more poor person reside in these districts. This is clearly indicative of the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factor of urbanization, inability of the urban infrastructure to provide the basic necessities and urgent requirements of specific poor oriented growth strategies in these districts, and call for an engendered State and District Plan. The HPI shows the amount of economic, social and health deprivation is highest in Mon and Tuensang. This highlights the need for a concerted and urgent pro-women, pro-poor, gender friendly intervention for the development of this region to improve the quality of life and bring it at par with the other districts of the State.
“Viewed against this background, Nagaland must make up in the areas of sustainable development, productivity, equity and empowerment. Orientation and time bound strategies can hasten the process of human development. This calls for raising awareness among the political and elected representatives, practitioners, policy makers, administrators, decision makers, academicians and Non Governmental Organizations across the planning process and thereby achieve the goal of ‘gender equity’ through ‘competency tools’.
Gender mainstreaming
“Gender Mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a strategy, an approach, a means to achieve the goal of gender equality. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities - policy development, research, advocacy/ dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects.
“For proper operationalization Gender Mainstreaming strategy, the sixth step approach is needed.
1. Identify gender perspectives of the sector area, through gender analysis, focusing on both issues of representation and contempt.
2. Identify what is required for a most active promotion of gender equality in the sector area.
3. Identify opportunities existing in different work task and additional actions, which need to be taken.
4. Develop a brief plan of action, which stated objective, defined activities and expected outcomes including indicator for achieving gender equality and measuring progress.
5. Include the above action plan in overall plan documents-medium term plan, programme budgets and performance evaluations.
6. Implement a system of regular and systematic follow-up and recording of results and lessons learned which feeds back into regular planning, programme and follow-up systems.
Gender Planning
“Gender Planning is the recognition of social and gender inequalities and the formulation of appropriate development approaches, processes and activities in developmental plans to address inequalities, thereby helping in improving the status of women. Gender Planning helps to expose, analyse and resolve the inequalities existing in social, economic, cultural, legal and family structure and serves to initiate a process of change to address such inequalities in structures and processes. By taking into account the existing power relations between men and women, gender planning aims at carrying out specific program to address inequaliti es and allocate resources, according to the pro rata share of women in the whole scheme of things. Development strategy should be based on women policies and perspectives. The process of need identification should be updated every 5 years to track the progress made and also to identify newer and emerging issues and greener pastures.
Women Component Plan
“Women’s Component Plan (WCP) was a strategy adopted by National Development Council (NDC) to achieve the specific objectives of the 9th Five Year Plan for Empowerment of Women and thereby aiming to provide a systematic mechanism for special activities to ensure gender equality in the society and within the family.
“Although plans under the women’s component were to be formulated on the basis of a women status study report, this process suffered from lack of resources and ability to take up such studies locally. Thus the issue concerning Naga women who constitute 47.62% of the total Naga population did not make it to the development agenda.
Factors adduced could be because-
- Nagaland women are excluded from decision making process
- Application of different rules for the devolution of ancestral and self acquired land
- Have no individual income
“The overarching objective of the WCP is the empowerment of women. WCP strive to archive gender equality. For this to be achieved, Government of India has mandated the States to provide for 30% of the budget in the WCP to be set aside for this purpose. The process of need identification should be updated every five years to track the progress made and also to identify newer and emerging issue.
Gender Budgeting
“The process of Gender Budgeting is initiated to eventually result in gender-responsive budgets. Gender budgeting refers to the process of conceiving, planning, approving, executing, monitoring, analyzing, auditing budgets in a gender sensitive way. It involves analysis of actual expenditure and revenue (usually of the government) on women and girls as compared to on men and boys. It helps the government to decide how policies need to be made, adjusted and reprioritized. Gender Budgeting is also a tool for effective policy implementation where one can check if the allocations are in line with policy commitments and are having the direct impact.
Gender Audit
“Gender Audit is not only the process of reviewing financial figures but also a critical analysis of the systems and processes of Local Government. It seeks to integrate women’s performance to the overall process of Planning, Implementations, Monitor and Evaluation. It is carried out to create a separate space for women to voice the concerns, suggestion and opinions within the broader Social Audit framework. It help to assist the progress attain in realizing the avowed objective of Gender Equality and Gender Equity.
“There are a range of different actors who can be involved in Gender Budgeting. They have different roles and carry out different activities. Some of them are:
- The ministry of Women and Child Development (nodal ministry at the central level, in India)
- The Ministry of Finance (at the Center and States)
- The Planning Department or Planning Commission (at the Center and States)
- Sectoral ministries
- Researchers/Economics
- Civil society organizations especially women’s group.
- Parliamentarian and MLAs
- Media
- Development partners/Donors
- The women and men for whom the specific policy, program or budget is intended.”
The manual is intended for elected representatives, policy makers, administrators, decision makers, technical experts, academicians and all those who are not only involve but also closely associated with the process of planning and implementation at various levels. It contains tools, methods and indicators to help in gender based planning and implementation of programs and plans across departments. The approach to local level planning is to find solutions to local level planning. This manual gives gender guidance, methodology and tools, which can be adopted or modified based on diverse experiences, need and level of knowledge of those who use it.
The Gender Budgeting Manual gives a brief summary of the conditions and status of women in Nagaland and highlights the need of gender planning. The book also discusses on women’s component plan and gender budgeting and auditing.
An understanding of gender and its related concept constitutes an important pre-requisite for gender based planning. What is Gender? Gender as explained in the manual is a part of the broader socio-cultural context, refers to social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relationships between women and those between men. Gender determines what is expected, allowed and valued in women or men in a given context. In most societies, there are differences and inequalities between men and women in responsibilities assigned, activities undertaken, access to and control over resources, as well as decision making opportunities.
The Manual brings to light:
“It was only after Statehood and after joining the National planning process mid-way through the Third Five Year Plan (1961 - 1966) that the developmental process actually began to take shape in Nagaland. A comparative picture of Human Development Indices (HDI) across Nagaland shows that the State has a total population of 19,88,636 (census 2001) with a total female population of 9,46,950 (47.6%). The Total Fertility Rate stood at 3.77% (All India 2.85%). Nagaland has a Literacy Rate of 67.11% (All India 65.20%) as per the 2001 Census, where the Literacy Rate for Female is 61.90% (All India 54.03%). The percentage of women in the State involved in agriculture is 38.20% while 90.80% are involved in social service. The Human Development Indices for Nagaland was 0.623 as against 0.472 for India (2001). The State’s good performance and ranking can best be understood by looking at the constituents of the indices and the factors that influence them, including literacy, health status and income level. The per capita income for Nagaland during 2000 – 2001 is almost equal to the All India average. The social framework of Nagaland has placed formal education as a prized asset. Within Nagaland Dimapur has the highest HDI (0.733) followed closely by Mokokchung (0.71). Mon has the lowest HDI (0.45), which is less than the national average (0.472). The ranking of the district is directly to the position of the districts with District Domestic Product (DDP).
“The Gender Related Development Index (GDI) for Nagaland is 0.420 as against 0.623 for HDI. Adjusted for gender inequality, the performance of Kohima is better that all the other districts in human development indicators followed by Dimapur, Mokokchung and Phek. The first district also has higher HDI than other districts of the State. Zunheboto, Tuensang and Mon form the bottom of the developmental pyramid in the State. These districts have had lower incomes, literacy rates and enrolment that the rest of the State. The health infrastructure in these districts is inadequate, impacting the health and overall longevity of the people.
“The Human Poverty Index (HPI) of the State has come down in successive Plans from 49.37% in 1981 to 35.58% in 2001. The value of the HPI is lowest in Mokokchung followed by Zunheboto and Wokha. The bigger town of the State (Kohima and Dimapur) are ranked fourth and fifth respectively, indicating that more poor person reside in these districts. This is clearly indicative of the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factor of urbanization, inability of the urban infrastructure to provide the basic necessities and urgent requirements of specific poor oriented growth strategies in these districts, and call for an engendered State and District Plan. The HPI shows the amount of economic, social and health deprivation is highest in Mon and Tuensang. This highlights the need for a concerted and urgent pro-women, pro-poor, gender friendly intervention for the development of this region to improve the quality of life and bring it at par with the other districts of the State.
“Viewed against this background, Nagaland must make up in the areas of sustainable development, productivity, equity and empowerment. Orientation and time bound strategies can hasten the process of human development. This calls for raising awareness among the political and elected representatives, practitioners, policy makers, administrators, decision makers, academicians and Non Governmental Organizations across the planning process and thereby achieve the goal of ‘gender equity’ through ‘competency tools’.
Gender mainstreaming
“Gender Mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a strategy, an approach, a means to achieve the goal of gender equality. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities - policy development, research, advocacy/ dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects.
“For proper operationalization Gender Mainstreaming strategy, the sixth step approach is needed.
1. Identify gender perspectives of the sector area, through gender analysis, focusing on both issues of representation and contempt.
2. Identify what is required for a most active promotion of gender equality in the sector area.
3. Identify opportunities existing in different work task and additional actions, which need to be taken.
4. Develop a brief plan of action, which stated objective, defined activities and expected outcomes including indicator for achieving gender equality and measuring progress.
5. Include the above action plan in overall plan documents-medium term plan, programme budgets and performance evaluations.
6. Implement a system of regular and systematic follow-up and recording of results and lessons learned which feeds back into regular planning, programme and follow-up systems.
Gender Planning
“Gender Planning is the recognition of social and gender inequalities and the formulation of appropriate development approaches, processes and activities in developmental plans to address inequalities, thereby helping in improving the status of women. Gender Planning helps to expose, analyse and resolve the inequalities existing in social, economic, cultural, legal and family structure and serves to initiate a process of change to address such inequalities in structures and processes. By taking into account the existing power relations between men and women, gender planning aims at carrying out specific program to address inequaliti es and allocate resources, according to the pro rata share of women in the whole scheme of things. Development strategy should be based on women policies and perspectives. The process of need identification should be updated every 5 years to track the progress made and also to identify newer and emerging issues and greener pastures.
Women Component Plan
“Women’s Component Plan (WCP) was a strategy adopted by National Development Council (NDC) to achieve the specific objectives of the 9th Five Year Plan for Empowerment of Women and thereby aiming to provide a systematic mechanism for special activities to ensure gender equality in the society and within the family.
“Although plans under the women’s component were to be formulated on the basis of a women status study report, this process suffered from lack of resources and ability to take up such studies locally. Thus the issue concerning Naga women who constitute 47.62% of the total Naga population did not make it to the development agenda.
Factors adduced could be because-
- Nagaland women are excluded from decision making process
- Application of different rules for the devolution of ancestral and self acquired land
- Have no individual income
“The overarching objective of the WCP is the empowerment of women. WCP strive to archive gender equality. For this to be achieved, Government of India has mandated the States to provide for 30% of the budget in the WCP to be set aside for this purpose. The process of need identification should be updated every five years to track the progress made and also to identify newer and emerging issue.
Gender Budgeting
“The process of Gender Budgeting is initiated to eventually result in gender-responsive budgets. Gender budgeting refers to the process of conceiving, planning, approving, executing, monitoring, analyzing, auditing budgets in a gender sensitive way. It involves analysis of actual expenditure and revenue (usually of the government) on women and girls as compared to on men and boys. It helps the government to decide how policies need to be made, adjusted and reprioritized. Gender Budgeting is also a tool for effective policy implementation where one can check if the allocations are in line with policy commitments and are having the direct impact.
Gender Audit
“Gender Audit is not only the process of reviewing financial figures but also a critical analysis of the systems and processes of Local Government. It seeks to integrate women’s performance to the overall process of Planning, Implementations, Monitor and Evaluation. It is carried out to create a separate space for women to voice the concerns, suggestion and opinions within the broader Social Audit framework. It help to assist the progress attain in realizing the avowed objective of Gender Equality and Gender Equity.
“There are a range of different actors who can be involved in Gender Budgeting. They have different roles and carry out different activities. Some of them are:
- The ministry of Women and Child Development (nodal ministry at the central level, in India)
- The Ministry of Finance (at the Center and States)
- The Planning Department or Planning Commission (at the Center and States)
- Sectoral ministries
- Researchers/Economics
- Civil society organizations especially women’s group.
- Parliamentarian and MLAs
- Media
- Development partners/Donors
- The women and men for whom the specific policy, program or budget is intended.”
Sources: Department of Planning and
Co-ordination, Government of Nagaland
Akummeren
News Assistant, DIPR
News Assistant, DIPR
