KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

Ways to Institutionalize Gender Budgeting (Ⅳ) : monitoring gender budgeting initiatives and improving the Mid-term Finance Operating Plan

Since the establishment of the National Finance Law that made both the statement of gender budgeting and the settlement of accounts compulsory, various research to help institutionalize the gender budgeting in accordance with the domestic finance operating system has been constantly conducted. The following research report is the 4th since 2007 and completes the series of studies on ways of institutionalizing gender budgeting.
As the title ?Ways to institutionalize gender budgeting(Ⅳ): monitoring gender budgeting initiatives and improving the Mid-term Finance Operating Plans? suggests, the report places great emphasis on monitoring current policy implementation as well as thoroughly examining long-term finance operating plans. The report is divided into two parts covering the two main topics, with each having its own conclusion and suggestions for improvement.

The first part is mainly about monitoring gender budgeting initiatives, including the National Assembly's examinations on ?2010 Gender Budgeting Statement? (Chapter Ⅱ) and the whole process of the ?2011 Gender Budgeting Statement? (Chapter Ⅲ). Considering that this year is the final year completing the last 4 years' researches, the major issue points and policy proposals in gender budgeting initiatives are discussed in more detail. Particularly, Chapter Ⅳ contains a collection of extensive opinions on the nation's gender budgeting from different bodies relevant to gender budgeting. They include members of the National Assembly, public officers, and gender budgeting experts abroad.

In the Focus Group Interviews, the members of the National Assembly agree that the selection of target projects for gender budgeting should be based on the projects' relevance to current issues of gender equality. Prioritizing policies that are more closely related to current gender issues or which need immediate reaction is more important than merely increasing the number of target projects. The participants of the interviews also point out that some ways to vitalize examination of gender budgeting statements should be developed. They provide some ideas such as creating a special committee in the National Assembly to examine the results of gender budgeting statements. Unlike the current evaluation process that has been done by only a few members of the assembly who are personally interested in gender equality, making a comprehensive evaluation compulsory is expected to be more effective in its implementation. Another opinion is that training and workshops for gender budgeting are needed for those who are involved in budget evaluation across the board. In order for those people to become interested in gender budgeting and understand it properly, specially designed programmes are required. The members also argue that it is crucial to get the civic groups more actively involved in lobbying parliamentary members during the period of budget examination.

The government employees who are responsible for target projects for gender budgeting believe that clear criteria in selecting target projects are necessary. They argue that the decision on criteria should be preceded by preliminary investigation and analysis. This is considered a better way of persuading government employees to be more active in gender budgeting and ensuring the high quality of their gender budgeting statements. In the focus group interviews, the government employees suggest various ideas on how to run gender budgeting which include introducing incentives or disincentives, operating training programmes, promotion activities, as well as providing blueprints on what direction the gender budgeting will take.

Lastly, gender budgeting experts from abroad provide valuable guidance on Korea's gender budgeting. The specialists interviewed all concur with each other in the significance of gender information in the gender budgeting statement. However, they also agree that gender-segregated information is only a starting point for a gender analysis of budget and in itself should not be the purpose of the statement. In other words, the figures alone in the statement should not be used to judge a degree of gender equality, but a fundamental understanding of the structural circumstances. One piece of their advice, which is similar to that from members of the National Assembly, is that researchers and specialists on gender budgeting are in important positions to contribute to gender analysis in depth, and collaboration amongst civic societies, parliamentary members, and specialists is greatly needed. The experts stress the importance of a tailored support for government employees, a range of experiments in developing gender budgeting analysis tools through demonstration projects, and an incentive system to successfully institutionalize gender budgeting.

The suggestions discussed by these three different groups offer great advice to improve the existing policy patterns.

The second part focuses on how to incorporate gender equality into the existing national finance plans. As the national budgeting is set up and implemented based on the mid-term national finance plans, here we talk about how to operate mid-term finance to strengthen the social capacity of women and realize gender equality. The issue of how to modify the existing national finance operating system to reflect gender perspectives is also examined. In chapter Ⅴ, resource allocation planning in the national finance operating plans (2009-2013) is analyzed and ways of improvement are suggested. From the case-studies on this year's gender budget analysis, key subjects in planning a mid-to-long-term finance investment are drawn up.

Back in 2007 when this series of research projects on the institutionalization of gender budgeting was initiated, even the terminology of gender budgeting was far from well-known to most people. Apart from the national finance law which stated that "The government is responsible for evaluation of the impacts of the national budget on women and men, and the reflection of these results on actual budgeting" (Article 16 Chapter 5) and that "The government has to draw up a report(gender budgeting statement) analyzing the expected effects on budget on women and men" (Article 26), there was no in-depth discussion on how to go about institutionalizing gender budgeting in Korea. For this reason, we had to research the subject from the very beginning, that is; from conceptualizing the gender budget to developing the format of its statement and guidelines.

Based on our research conducted over the years, ?2010 Gender Budgeting Statement? and ?2011 Gender Budgeting Statement? were submitted to the National Assembly. Our researches have covered both the process of drawing up a statement in the Ministry of Public Administration and the evaluation process of the gender budgeting statement by the National Assembly. These comprehensive analyses will allow us to come up with best ways to institutionalize gender budgeting.