Gender-Responsive Budgeting Processes in the Italian Regional and Local Governments

Abstract

Gender-responsive budgeting is an application of gender mainstreaming in all phases of the budgetary cycle, in the allocation of economic and financial resources in gender equal or unequal ways and in decision-making processes. It is a gender-specific accountability document produced by governments from all regions of the world to show what their programs and budgets are achieving with respect to gender equality, to the empowerment of women, and to women’s rights. Integrating a gender budgeting methodology into the ordinary budgetary processes allows governments to understand better the different effects that policies and actions, revenue and expenditure, can have on women and men. Moreover, the gender budget report plays a particularly important role in the improvement of governance: it is a tool available to public administration for self-evaluation and therefore defines increasingly effective and fair administration methods. Through a qualitative approach, this study investigates the most significant gender budgeting initiatives implemented by Italian regions, provinces, and municipalities in order to know which approaches and methodologies in the gender budgeting processes they have adopted internally or promoted on their territories. Particularly, this study analyses 27 gender budgets carried out in 4 Italian regions, 6 provinces, 1 union of municipalities, and 16 municipalities. Currently, available evidence suggests the need to public authorities to go further than the sporadic implementation of gender budgeting, systematizing a gender-based analysis, and a gender equality-oriented evaluation with regard to the distribution of resources and the explanation of budgets.