Gender Budgeting in OECD Countries 2023

Executive summary

Gender budgeting is a public financial management tool that can be used to integrate gender considerations into budget decision making. It can be used to identify budget measures that will be effective at closing gender gaps and advancing gender equality objectives.

Gender budgeting is increasingly practised in OECD countries and is now a budgeting tool used to help close gender gaps in 61% of member countries. The number of OECD countries practising gender budgeting has almost doubled in recent years, with 23 countries having introduced it in 2022, compared to 12 in 2016 (35%).

The 2022 OECD Survey on Gender Budgeting gathered information on practices across the five building blocks of the 2023 OECD Framework for Gender Budgeting: 1) institutional and strategic arrangements; 2) methods and tools; 3) enabling environment; 4) accountability and transparency; and 5) impact. A summary of the key results are as follows:

Institutional and strategic arrangements

• Gender budgeting tends to have legal underpinnings: A legal basis for gender budgeting is present in 61% of OECD countries, including constitutional requirements in 9% of countries.

• Gender budgeting is typically led by Central Budget Authorities (CBAs): The CBA has lead responsibility for gender budgeting in 61% of OECD countries where it is practiced.

• Policy priorities for gender equality can be set out in a variety of documents: The policy priorities may be derived from sector-specific gender equality goals (43%), a national gender equality strategy (43%), priorities identified in gender needs assessment (30%) and/or national gender equality goals (30%).

• Inter-agency working groups can be engaged to facilitate a strong governance structure for gender budgeting: Co-ordinated exchange through the establishment of an inter-agency working group has been introduced in 30% of OECD countries practicing gender budgeting.

Methods and tools

• There is no one dominant gender budgeting method or tool used across OECD countries: The application of a gender perspective in performance frameworks is the only tool used by more than half of OECD countries (52%), however, ex ante gender impact assessments also remain one of the most common methods for evidence gathering (48%).

• Each country tends to use multiple analytical tools to support gender budgeting: On average, three different methods and tools are used for the implementation of gender budgeting in OECD countries where it is practiced. Gender budgeting methods and tools tend to be implemented in the earlier stages of the budget cycle.

• Gender budgeting methods and tools evolve over time: Many OECD countries have plans to evolve their approach using additional tools in the future.

Enabling environment

• Supports for gender budgeting measures have generally increased and broadened: The core elements used to enable the implementation of gender budgeting in OECD countries are guidelines (70%), sector specific gender disaggregated data (70%), training and capacity development measures (70%) and general availability of gender disaggregated data (61%).

• Challenges limiting the implementation of gender budgeting measures are varied: The main challenges identified include a lack of resources (70%), a lack of knowledge or technical experience (57%) and a lack of impact on budget decisions (52%).

Accountability and transparency

• Most countries include and publish gender budgeting evidence in annual budget documentation to increase transparency: Gender information is included in annual budget documentation in 78% of OECD countries practicing gender budgeting. Content includes information from gender impact assessments of individual budget measures (48%), information on progress towards gender goals (39%) or summary information from budget tagging (26%).

• External accountability for gender budgeting tends to focus on reporting to parliament: 65% of OECD countries practicing gender budgeting regularly report to their legislatures and 30% undertake parliamentary committee hearings on gender budgeting. Oversight for gender budgeting is undertaken by the Supreme Audit Institution in approximately a quarter of countries, while independent fiscal institutions exercise oversight in 13% of countries.

• Civic led external scrutiny processes are undertaken to increase accountability and transparency of gender budgeting practices: Non-government stakeholders assess the gender impact of the budget in 48% of countries that practice gender budgeting.

Impact

• Countries try to have evidence from gender budgeting considered in policy and budget decision making, however its use is still limited: There is a requirement that gender information accompany budget proposals in the majority of OECD countries practicing gender budgeting (52%). However, just 9% of OECD countries reported gender budgeting information was always or often used in decision making, 59% of countries reported that it was sometimes used and 32% said that it was rarely used.

• Methodologies to measure the macro impacts of gender budgeting vary across the OECD: A third of OECD countries practicing gender budgeting have a framework or indicators in place to measure its impact (35%).

The 2022 OECD Gender Budgeting Index compares the level of implementation of gender budgeting across the five building blocks of the 2023 OECD Framework for Gender Budgeting: 1) institutional and strategic arrangements; 2) methods and tools; 3) enabling environment; 4) accountability and transparency; and 5) impact. Canada, which legislated for gender budgeting in 2018, obtained the highest score overall. Austria, Iceland, Korea, Mexico, Spain and Sweden also achieved advanced practice scores.