UN Report lauds India Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) | Current Affairs | Vision IAS
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UN Report lauds India Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB)

Posted 21 Nov 2024

2 min read

Report titled ‘Charting New Paths for Gender Equality and Empowerment: Asia-Pacific Regional Report on Beijing + 30 Review’ highlighted that adoption of GRB by India demonstrated strong commitment to ensure the efficient allocation of resources.

  • Report has been published by UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and UN Women. 

What is GRB or Gender Budgeting?

  • A tool for gender mainstreaming which uses the Budget as an entry point to apply a gender lens to the entire policy process.
    • It is not a separate Budget and also not about spending the same on women and men.
  • GRB in India
    • Genesis: Institutionalized by the Ministry of Finance in 2005–2006.
      • Gender Budget Statement is presented by the Government in budget session.
    • Nodal Agency: Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) 
    • Consists of two parts: 
      • Part A: Encompasses schemes that allocate funds exclusively for women.
      • Part B: Represents the dominant share in the budget – comprises schemes that allocate a minimum of 30% of funds towards women.
    • It also comes under the Samarthya, sub-scheme of Mission Shakti. 

Key Challenges in implementation: Exclusion of key programmes that benefit women, lack of sex- disaggregated data, etc.

Recommendations of the UN report for improving the Efficiency of GRB 

  • Establish stronger monitoring mechanisms to enhance the quality of GRB efforts at the sectoral level
  • Integrate GRB considerations during the budget prioritization phase
  • Encourage subnational governments to adopt GRB practices
  • Tags :
  • UNESCAP
  • Mission Shakti
  • UN Women
  • Gender Budgeting
  • Samarthya
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