An integral part of a democracy is transparency in a country’s spending. As such the budget is regarded as the most important policy statement made by the Executive, reflecting the core values underlying national policy. Should Parliament therefore be more involved in the process of formulating the budget? Should Members of Parliament (MPs) be more proactive in influencing budget procedures and ensuring they are gender-balanced?
These key issues emerged at a seminar organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in May 2000. The country’s budget is a vital document in guaranteeing transparency, accountability and good governance. There must be clarity regarding the role and powers of Parliament in dealing with the budget. Also, a consensus in Parliament must exist to ensure that the process is transparent and participatory, and meets the needs of the community. Gender-disaggregated data should be available to MPs in order to allow a gender analysis of the budget.
Parliament should help the gender sensitivity of the budget even in the early stages of budgetary formulation. This should be done through assessing economic priorities as reflected in the national budget.
- A formal link should be established by constitutional law between the Executive and Parliament with regard to the execution of the budget
- Parliament should have more influence on the drafting of the budget and ensure that appropriate funding is given to each sector of the community
- Parliament must have enough time for a full reading of the budget. MPs should be more prepared to understand the overall structure and process of the budget, which would allow them to fully perform their role with regard to it
- Parliament should lawfully be able to amend the budget in order to meet the needs and aspirations of society
- An MP’s links with a party should not stop them from looking at the budget critically, taking into account the interests of the electorate
- How money is spent should be fully documented at all stages. The scrutinising of accounts helps to guarantee the democratic process.
In engendering the budget, the aspirations and needs of both sexes and all age groups will be met. With this approach to society, the emphasis is on promoting those for whom the current social system is least favourable – that is, mostly women.
- MPs must exercise their responsibilities to establish the relevance and validity to gender issues of the strategies and policies underpinning the contents of the budget document and bill
- If budget processes are to meet gender requirements they must be reviewed. Government’s economic polices should be debated by Parliament before the budget is drawn up, and MPs should be equipped to assess whether budgets are gender-balanced
- African MPs in particular should do more to actively influence budget approaches and ensure they are gender-balanced
- Further engendering could be achieved by moving from a line budgeting to a programme/budget approach and highlighting ‘outcomes’
- Electorate sectoral reviews should be insisted on by MPs and they must look for an informal role in this review in order to influence orientations towards gender biases
- As resources are scarce, MPs should demand priority setting in budget documents, emphasising core projects/ programmes with the strongest gender bias.
