Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is increasingly becoming a buzz word at budget and finance related meetings, presentations, and conferences. This time, at the kind invitation of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) KWN Programme Manager and Lead Researcher Nicole Farnsworth presented on GRB at three different regional workshops on municipal budgeting processes, on the behalf of Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

   On 25, 26 and 28 August, MoF organized three regional workshops with local and central authorities on the development of municipal budgets for the period 2016-2018.The main goal of the workshops was to discuss and coordinate the priority objectives on the development of municipal budgets, including the coordination of activities with line-ministries. Minister of Finance, Avduallah Hoti, in his opening remarks stated the importance of budget transparency and fiscal austerity and Petrit Popova, director of municipal budgets at MoF, moderated the discussion, listened to the many difficulties that municipal authorities were having and gave answers and solutions to those issues. “Municipalities are currently struggling with budget cuts, especially in the economic category of Wages and Salaries”, added mr. Popova.

   Nicole Farnsworth had the chance to inform participants on GRB. As GRB became a legal obligation in 2015, Ms. Farnsworth informed participants on the new Law on Gender Equality and the Budget Circular 2016/02 which obliges both municipalities and ministries to institutionalize GRB. She further gave some examples of how GRB had been integrated previously, citing the prominent example of Kamenica. KWN hopes that all municipalities will soon integrate GRB elements into their budget processes and documents. 

The three workshops were supported by OSCE, whereas KWN work on GRB is supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Zusammenarbet (GIZ) and Austrian Development Agency (ADA).