In 2015, KWN has reached an agreement with the Municipality of Gjakova, according to which KWN will support the Municipality in institutionalizing Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in budget processes and documents during 2015.

On 22 Apr., KWN held a workshop regarding GRB methodology with 17 representatives of the Municipality of Gjakova, including budget officers and directors of various departments in the Municipality of Gjakova. In his opening remarks, Mr. Teki Shala, Director of the Directorate for Budget and Finance in the Municipality of Gjakova, spoke on the importance of GRB for the Municipality of Gjakova, and how Gjakova is a leader for the Republic of Kosovo in that it will be the second Municipality to institutionalize GRB.

Nicole Farnsworth, KWN Manager and Lead Researcher and Donjeta Morina, KWN Capacity Development Coordinator held the workshop promising the participants that it would be very practical in nature. “By the end of this workshop, all of you should be able to go to your offices, and practically utilize GRB in the work of your directorate,” Ms. Morina said.

    The workshop was very interactive and participants gave examples from their own directorates. Participants went through methods of how to integrate GRB in different economic categories, such as wages and salaries, goods and services, municipal expenses, and capital investments.

This workshop was the first step towards institutionalizing GRB in the Municipality of Gjakova. Follow up mentoring will be scheduled for the weeks and months to come, so as to continue practically training Gjakova officials on integrating GRB in their daily work. KWN also will assist in mainstreaming gender in the Gjakova Mid-term Budget Framework (MTBF), 2016-2018.

The workshop and the cooperation with Gjakova is receiving support from the Austrian Development Agency. This initiative comes after collaborating successfully to support the Municipality of Kamenica to implement GRB in 2014. KWN’s prior work with Kamenica was very successful in that Kamenica budget processes and documents became more gender sensitive. Ultimately, Kamenica took the first steps towards institutionalizing GRB. Further, during KWN’s work with Kamenica, best practices to be used in other municipalities were also identified. One of these identified best practices was related to methodology, as KWN noticed that an initial workshop on GRB methodology, coupled with follow up individual mentoring was the best approach.

In the future, KWN seeks to expand its support to other municipalities as well.