Gender responsive budgeting requires that funds be spent among diverse men, women, boys and girls to address their specific needs and priorities. Law no. 05 / L-020 on Gender Equality makes gender responsive budgeting mandatory for public institutions in Kosovo, including municipalities, ministries and other budget organizations. Pursuant to this law, non-implementation of gender responsive budgeting practices is considered a violation by the competent court and sanctions are imposed accordingly. Also, the Ministry of Finance, Labor and Transfers through the Budget Circular requires gender responsive budgeting to be included as an annex to the budget allocations request for 2022. The Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN) requests that each municipality ensure the inclusion of the required annex with gender responsive budgeting related data when submitting annual budget requests, in accordance with the Law on Gender Equality and budget circulars. According to the best gender responsive budgeting practices, also used by the Kosovo Institute for Public Administration (KIPA), this annex includes and/or is based on: 1) an analysis of the different needs of women and men in the municipality; 2) how different women and men benefited from the previous budget, and any unaddressed needs from the same; and 3) municipal targets with indicators towards increasing gender equality through expenditures in 2022, addressing any inequalities identified by gender analysis.

In addition, we request for Gender Equality Officers to be involved in municipalities and women’s civil society organizations to be included in the process of organizing public consultations, as provided by Law 03 / L-048 on Public Financial Management and Accountability, and to engage more women in all budget processes. In addition to the requirements for integrating gender responsive budgeting into all budget phases, we have some recommendations for municipal budget lines for better funding:

Gender Equality

• Ensure that economic recovery measures support men and women according to their different needs.

• Allocate funds for mandatory training by KIPA for all civil servants with relevant responsibilities related to gender equality and gender responsive budgeting.

• Allocate a budget for training and mentoring officials and for building their capacities related to gender mainstreaming in all public policies at the local level.

• Allocate sufficient budget for the Office for Gender Equality to enable the implementation of activities related to the promotion of gender equality in their municipality.

• Allocate sufficient budget to conduct ex ante and ex post gender impact assessments to inform all policies, actions, and budgets.

Women’s Economic Empowerment

• Approve fiscal policies and incentives to develop women’s businesses, including in the agricultural sector. The municipality should analyze the main obstacles faced by women’s businesses during and after the pandemic, as well as develop policies that would help overcome these obstacles. Affirmative measures could include but not necessarily be limited to facilitating the payment of utility bills, tax relief, access to loans, as well as increasing the share of municipal expenditures in subsidies for women’s businesses.

• Take special measures and make continuous efforts within the medium-term measures to identify violations of rights by the informal economy, especially, but not limited to the agricultural sector (example: increase the number of inspectors or build the capacity of current inspectors to develop a gender-responsive “Do No Harm” approach when addressing the informal economy, addressing the needs of women in this sector.

Addressing gender-based violence

• Allocate sufficient resources, based on gender analysis and gender-responsive budgeting, to fully implement municipal responsibilities to address all forms of gender-based violence, especially in terms of rehabilitation and reintegration into society (which hitherto has had insufficient resources, as shown by findings from KWN’s “From Words to Action” research). For example, allocate a sufficient budget for more social service officers and for implementing rehabilitation case management plans.

• Provide shelter facilities / buildings in municipalities where they are not available, as well as social housing for persons who have suffered gender-based violence to live independently.

• Budget sufficiently for providing obligatory basic and multi-sectoral training for government officials working within municipalities on issues such as gender equality, gender-based violence, referrals and municipal budget commitments, and providing these services.

Equal, quality education

• Allocate funds to increase the number of child care centers and pre-school centers in proportion to the number of children in need at the local level. This will also increase children’s educational performance, help create new jobs, and enable more women to enter the workforce, according to KWN’s research.

• Include in the Directorate of Education at the local level a budget for teachers in Lower Secondary and Upper Secondary Education be trained on delivering gender-transformative teaching towards reducing gender inequalities, transforming gender roles and existing gender norms on power relations.

Health care

• Provide sufficient budget for the provision of reproductive health services in all municipalities.