Abstract
Gender budgeting has great potential to promote the United Nations 2030 Agenda concerning gender equality and women’s empowerment. This article shares some reflections on the need to implement and institutionalize gender budgeting at the regional level, both by embedding gender issues into the overall regional government budgetary process and by promoting gender equality disclosures. An empirical insight into the institutional behavior of Italian regional governments is provided. The study seeks to understand how the gender perspective is integrated into the governmental strategy that informs the entire budgetary cycle of Italian regional governments, by performing a thematic analysis of the key regional planning documents. The local promotion of gender budgeting implementation through institutional norms and the practice of gender performance reporting in Italian regional governments are also addressed. The results highlight that although there are differing degrees of commitment to gender equality and women’s advancement within the regions, the gender perspective is quite homogeneously integrated into the governmental strategy. Four gendered transversal thematic priorities are identified: the encouragement of women’s employment, the promotion of equal gender opportunities, the enhancement of social inclusion, and the combatting of gender-based violence. Furthermore, although nine regional laws establish gender performance reporting, additional reporting tools integrating non-financial information on gender issues are included solely in a small part of the regional government performance reporting systems. A greater organizational and cultural commitment to the institutionalization of the gender budgeting idea is needed in order to allow stakeholders to appreciate the government’s value outcomes in all their dimensions, including the gender-related social dimension.
Highlights
1.1 Background and Rationale for the StudyGender budgeting refers to a systematic approach involving tools, techniques and procedures of the budget cycle to integrate a gender perspective into all stages of the budgetary process, from the planning phase to the final reporting (Downes et al, 2017; Galizzi et al, 2018; Steccolini, 2019)
The following research questions are addressed: RQ1: How is the gender perspective integrated into the governmental strategy informing the budgetary cycle of Italian regional governments?
Some subthemes are not common, rather they characterize only a part of the regional experience. This is the case of the subtheme ―promote gender equality by implementing reporting on gender impact‖, which is only considered by three regions (Calabria, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont); in addition, the subtheme ―encourage full equity in remuneration‖ is relatively isolated because only two regions (Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Veneto) have integrated it into their governmental strategy
Summary
Gender budgeting ( called gender responsive budgeting or even gender sensitive budgeting) refers to a systematic approach involving tools, techniques and procedures of the budget cycle to integrate a gender perspective into all stages of the budgetary process, from the planning phase to the final reporting (Downes et al, 2017; Galizzi et al, 2018; Steccolini, 2019) This perspective serves to inform the allocation of government budgets to ensure that spending and revenue allocations address the needs and interests of different social groups, in order to give them equal opportunities and erase gaps and social discrimination linked to sex, ethnicity, class, poverty, location and age (Sodani & Sharma, 2008). The implementation of gender-responsive budget statements - that highlight gender priorities and related goals and outcomes - can constitute a pillar of sustainable http://ibr.ccsenet.org
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
