The Youth Association for Human Rights (YAHR) has been working towards institutionalising gender responsive budgeting (GRB) in Kosovo since January.
Its initiative “Monitoring and analysis of the drafting of local policies from the gender perspective” focuses on monitoring gender mainstreaming in local institutions in the Municipality of Lipjan.
In order to achieve this, YAHR has met with several representatives of the municipality of Lipjan to advocate for a fair allocation of the municipal budget.
They recently launched their research report titled “Gender Mainstreaming in Local Institutions in Lipjan”. Here, YAHR recommends strategies that would help the Directorate of Administration and the Kosovo Police Station in Lipjan to improve gender equality, particularly by increasing the percentage of women in leadership positions. Their report illustrates that women remain underrepresented in top leadership positions, compared to men. According to them, in the next three or five years, each institution must seek to increase the number (and percentage) of women in leadership positions, towards achieving gender equality in accordance with Kosovo law. This initiative came following YAHR’s participation in a training on gender responsive budgeting, organised by the Gender Budget Watchdog Network, a regional initiative of which both KWN and YAHR are members.
“The training on gender responsive budgeting, for us as an organization, has been one of the main pillars to raise the issue of gender mainstreaming in the Municipality of Lipjan,” said Ferdian Shala from YAHR. “The knowledge on GRB that we have gained during the training organized by the Gender Budget Watchdog Network has helped us organize trainings with the group of women assembly members of the Municipality of Lipjan on the importance of gender responsive policies.” Further, he added that “gender responsive budgeting has played a very important role in the Municipality of Lipjan, but in particular in raising the general social need that we as a society must achieve to respect the most basic human rights, which are envisaged in the constitution. After all, gender responsive budgeting means equal sharing of responsibilities.”
These efforts are all in the spirit of supporting institutions to implement their commitments to gender-responsive budgeting in Kosovo, where it is a legal obligation. As per best practices in gender-responsive budgeting, gender analysis of needs, such as that conducted by YAHR, should always inform government revenues and expenditures. Thus, their analysis can be important for supporting the Municipality of Lipjan in the process of planning its medium-term and annual budget for 2022.
Overall, YAHR’s efforts have succeeded in bringing institutions’ attention to the importance of gender mainstreaming and the inclusion of women.
This initiative is financed by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and Swedish International Development Cooperation (Sida).
Last month, YAHR also became a member of the Kosovo Women’s Network.
