KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

This research paper aims to analyze and evaluate gender budgeting as a whole. It is the fourth-year research in a series of research that started in 2011, based on the mid-to long-term roadmap, and it is also the final research paper in the comprehensive research project

This research paper is made up of three parts, and Part 1 covers research on how to improve gender budgeting. We develop a mid-to long-term roadmap that seeks strategies to improve the system long-term (Chapter Ⅱ). Not only is a mid-to long-term roadmap an important resource to evaluate gender budgeting in the future, but it also suggests research topics for each step that will help develop the system. ‘Analysis of Public Officials’ Opinion on Gender Budgeting’ measures the effectiveness of gender budgeting and also focuses on the need to measure costs such as fatigue felt by the officials in charge of drawing up the gender budget statement and the opportunity costs. At the same time, we design a research format that can develop into panel surveys in the future (Chapter Ⅲ).

In Part 2, we discuss the first ‘Survey of Officials on Drafting Gender Budget Statements and Statement of Accounts at the Local Government Level’ conducted for the successful implementation of gender budgeting at the local government level (Chapter Ⅳ).

Part 3 is about gender budgeting in other countries, specifically the Philippines and Malaysia. Based on the results, we explore whether gender budgeting could be chosen as a project for KSP modularization and the national policy consultation project, and what needs to be taken into account if it’s chosen for the national policy consultation project (Chapter Ⅴ)

The research results showed the following. First, we searched for strategies for gender budgeting to improve long-term, by developing a mid-to long-term roadmap. The roadmap consists of the following parts: objective for each development stage, detailed projects, and action plans. We concluded that this is an important tool to examine and evaluate the system in the future, and also are the research topics to be explored in order to improve the system. For the mid-to long-term roadmap developed in this research paper to be put in action and to be evaluated, much has to be preceded. In advance, we need a system that will inspect how the roadmap is being put into action and being evaluated. In addition, from the detailed projects, interested parties should be aware of projects that are lacking and aim to improve those parts through discussion. To be specific, they need to be discussed at a permanent consultative group, which must have legal binding force.

Secondly, we conducted ‘Survey of Public Officials’ Opinions on Gender Budgeting’ and drew policy implications. It showed that there was a positive change in perception of gender equality and gender budgeting after drafting a gender statement and statement of accounts and also in actions taking gender equality into consideration in the budgeting and settlement process. When we surveyed the cost per monetary unit and WTP (willingness to pay) of the officials in charge of drafting budget statements and settlements of accounts, the estimation for 77% of all respondents was smaller than 0. This can be interpreted as there being a high percentage of officials who feel that drafting a gender budget statement and settlement of accounts is an additional workload. The survey on how to tackle issues of improvement revealed that most preferred a more voluntary direction over a forced one. Policy tasks relating to surveys of public officials are strengthening the binding power of the surveys and notifying the permanent consultative group.

Thirdly, we analyzed local public officials’ drafting of gender budget statements and settlements of accounts and drew policy implications. In general, it showed that the level of awareness of gender budgeting, agreement with the purpose, acceptability, perception of the importance were higher among officials who had not prepared the statements. Additionally, those officials also thought gender equality policies were important, more so than the officials who had prepared the statements. This can be interpreted as the difficulties from the additional workload having a negative influence on the understanding of, agreement with, acceptability of gender budgeting. This means that a more active and systematic support plan should be provided for drafting gender budgets and settlement of accounts. Furthermore, more effort must be made to promote the positive aspects of gender budgeting and provide education that will lead to a positive perception of gender budgeting.

Finally, we examined the possibility of gender budgeting becoming a part of KSP (Knowledge Sharing Program). In particular, we compared the Philippines, a country that has had the experience of implementing government-led gender budgeting and is also a KSP partner with Malaysia, which is not a KSP partner. First of all, we need further discussion and research on whether gender budgeting can become a part of the national policy consultation project through modularization. This is due to the fact that it is difficult for gender budgeting, which has cross-cutting issues, to be compacted into a single module. Moreover, a strategic module that can provide consultation that is customized for the partner country’s social, economic, and cultural situation needs to be developed.