Pacific Island Countries are among those that are the most highly exposed and vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters and climate change.
As a group they face huge adaptation costs, that the
Gender inequality in Pacific Islands Countries also remains a significant challenge, that has been further exacerbated by the pandemic. A recent
A recent 4-day
Gender budgeting recognizes that government budgets impact men and women differently - and is an important instrument that governments have at their disposal to advance gender equality. Green Budgeting is integration of a climate-friendly perspective into PFM practices, systems, and frameworks.
Despite the growing international recognition of the value of Gender and Green Budgeting, both practices have so far remained underutilized and are largely embryonic in the region.
Over the course of the 4-day workshop, participants were able to explore the opportunities for integrating a gender and green perspective into their national budget processes through a combination of interactive lectures, case studies, and exercises. The workshop introduced the IMF Gender Budgeting Framework, the IMF Green PFM Framework and highlighted specific tools that offered straight forward entry points to support the integration of climate and gender perspectives into the budget decision making process. Options explored included strengthening the budget decision making process; considering how to identify and tag gender and climate related spending; and how to transparently present the range of activities and the government is implementing to address climate and gender challenges by developing a Green or Gender Budget Statement.
Both Green Budgeting and Gender Budgeting help to prioritize policies within a budget constraint, analyze and measure their intended impact and inform decisions about resource allocation. It improves existing programs by making them more gender inclusive and climate friendly, while measuring their performance and effectiveness.
Globally, countries are recognizing the value in bringing a green and gender perspective together in the budget process, given the considerable synergies in approach and complementarity of various tools. In the
Green Budgeting and Gender budgeting are actually just good budgeting - the kind that is needed to help government prioritize and confront challenges of climate vulnerability and gender inequality. In a world where many countries are grappling with increasing exposure and vulnerability to climate change, and at the same time recognizing the role that inclusive growth can play in making everyone better off-these questions of where money is being spent, whether polices are working and whether they have impact - are questions of good PFM.
[1]
[2] A Gender Employment Gap Index (GEGI): A Simple Measure of the Economic Gains from Closing Gender Employment Gaps, with an Application to the Pacific Islands,
[3] Advancing gender equality in the Pacific: a win-win for women and the economy (worldbank.org)
[4] Ending Violence Against Women and Girls | UN Women -
[5] The workshop had 40 participants from ministries of finance and the donor community and representation from 13 of the 16 PFTAC member countries. The
[6] The Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) supplementary framework for assessing gender responsive public financial management (GRPFM) It collects information on the degree to which a country's public financial management (PFM) system addresses the government's goals with regard to acknowledging different needs of men and women and promoting gender equality.
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