Gender Budgeting in Italy: Good Practices at the local level

1. Gender Budgeting in practice November 8th 2007, Prague Gender Budgeting in Italy: Good Practices at the local level Giovanna Vingelli Fondazione Brodolini Università della Calabria

2. Emilia Romagna Liguria Marche Catanzaro

3. ITALY: “how to” at the local level • Data and indicators • To carry out a gender audit of the budget cycle: policy decisions, budget decision and their impact reflected in the services provided • The project thus involved negotiation with each department councilor (political level); introducing GB into the balance sheet guidelines for the departments chosen and into the yearly social balance sheet (administrative level) • Making appropriate changes • Awareness raising • Networking

4. Basic data should include • number of people who take advantage of social welfare according to gender, education, age, previous income, number of people in the household, marital status, • statistics of programs – number of people participating in trainings and workshops and data on the efficiency of trainings, • data on people who benefit from services like kindergartens and nurseries, including age and number of children, income and profession of parents, • Situation of seniors according to gender, • Statistics on people who are permanently unemployed according to gender, education, age, experience, number of people in the household. The city/province/region is obliged to own such statistics, but there are failures in creating data banks and accessing those data.

5. Sectorial analysis

6. Experiences of Italian local government implementing gender budget projects. Main features • Engaging of an “inside institutions” approach • Results of the analyses are presented in a separate document with a title, e.g. gender budget • Result of a “think-thank” of (mostly academic) experts, but there are also examples of a direct involvement of the local bureaucracy (MARCHE) • Analyses present situation and expenditure with reference to women and men (only EMILIA ROMAGNA analysis presents an analysis of the revenue side of the budget.)

7. EMILIA ROMAGNA Region and Province of MODENA (Budget cycle 2000/2001) • The researchers proposed a methodology based on the use of indicators that determined which specific issues needed to be looked at in budget terms depending on whether their value was above or below Italian or EU averages • A number of analyses on the influence of financial policy on the situation of women is conducted. • Reports suggest to modify taxation • Recommendations include different criteria for allocating and increasing public child care places (based on socio-economic indicators rather than solely on rent criteria) as to increase women’s chances to either find work or attend training, especially those with lower educational levels, as well as recommendations to adapt transport policy to the different needs and uses by women and men

8. Province of GENOVA and Municipality of SESTRI LEVANTE (Budget cycle: 2001) • Contextanalysis • Disaggregation and re-aggregationofexpenditures in 4 areas: • Women-specific targeted expenditures, eg. resources allocated for programs that specifically target women; Equal employment opportunity expenditures, eg. resources allocated to affirmative action in order to promote employment of women and men in equal numbers, equal representation within management posts, and equal pay. • Gender – targeted expenditures (child and elderly care; social policy; labor market; training…) • Environmental expenditures (transports, culture, environment, sport….) • Mainstream expenditures: the bulk of the remaining expenditures not covered by the first two categories (mostly administrative costs)

9. MARCHE Region (Budget cycle: 2003/2004) • Increased public participation and gender mainstreaming in the government processes through gender analyses and influencing budgeting processes. • The training and awareness raising at the level of the officials points to the possibility of continuing the work. In particular, the continuity of the inter-departmental group in the analysis of the budget can improve the identification of entries that are relevant to gender equality. • Piloted and improved methodology of gender expertise of budgets in the bureaucracy, summarized in an information package on gender budgeting in the Region; • project participants now have enough professional skills and gender sensitivity to further develop and apply the methodology of gender analyses to budgets at provincial level

10. Province of CATANZARO (Budget cycle: 2005-2006) • Special focus on the context • Involvement of stakeholder (politicians, administrators and employees) through specific interviews on general and gender policy objectives; identification of the main areas of intervention of the Province (expenditures and revenues) • Analysis of 2005 Final Budget and Preliminary draft, including an overall forecast of revenue and expenditure for a given year (2006), plus different planning documents and surveys (Equal Opportunity Commission). • Disaggregation of the budget and a reclassification in 4 areas • 1. directly related to gender/equal opportunities; • 2. indirectly related to gender – education, professional training, employment, social services; • 3. “environmental area” – culture, sport, economic activities, transports, viability; • 4. “neutral” area (administration costs); detailed identification and catalogue by each department and the actions they have taken to foster gender equality or to heighten awareness in addition to programs specifically targeting various categories of women

11. Conclusions • Measures adopted or envisioned to reduce inequalities do not always have undergone a stable and self-sustainable introduction in the administrative process • Lack of appropriate data • In 2006 two proposals have been issued at the Senate (by Sen. Dato and Sen. Boato). The proposals aim at implementing gender budgeting into the regular tasks of public administration.

12. :Good practices show that gender budgeting should follow a few rules • Engaging authorities and political good will - no project can be successfully done without cooperation of the authorities if this project requires reforming public finances. It may happen that authorities are not interested in hearing such analyses. If this situation occurs next rule must be employed. • Promoting gender equality – it is important especially when authorities are not interested in implementing of gender budget recommendations. It becomes necessary to stress benefits from implementing equality. • Conferences and trainings are helpful. NGOs and academics should be of assistance as the experience of other countries proves. • Transparency and cooperation – are crucial for success. Experts from multiple areas should be engaged, like finances, sociology, economy and politics. There should be both women and men involved in planning. Consulting is also recommended as well as reaching out to local associations and groups to gain their support • Long-term strategy

13. Main challenges • Weak understanding of gender issues in general (and thus the need to continue awareness raising). • Weak participation of civil society • Inadequate or insufficient participation and buy-in by all stakeholders (the fiscal authorities in particular), which, in turn, is a crucial element of the third challenge. • Sustainability of the initiative/ Developing instruments, methods and procedures to implement gender budgeting as a standard task of governments and public administrations.

14. And finally gender budgeting should go hand in hand with the integration of a gender dimension in all public policies - education, employment and urban planning, to name but a few. THANK YOU!