Gender Budgeting as a Means to Implement the Maputo Protocol’s Obligations to Provide Budgetary Resources to Realise Women’s Human Rights in Africa

Abstract

Articles 4(2)(i), 10(3) and 26(2) of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) impose an obligation on states to provide sufficient budgetary resources to realise women’s human rights. Despite the fact that several African countries have ratified the Maputo Protocol, there is still insufficient budgetary allocation to realise women’s human rights. This article presents gender budgeting as a step that African states can take towards the provision of sufficient resources to realise women’s human rights. It studies the concept of gender budgeting and its objectives to demonstrate the link between gender budgeting and the provision of budgetary resources to realise women’s human rights. It also studies the challenges that states face in the adoption of gender budgeting and concludes that despite the fact that there are challenges, they can be overcome if states show the required will to do so.