By: Ayat Abdel Mooty Deputy Minister of State for Sports

1. Building the capacity for gender responsive planning and budgeting in Egypt towards the improvement of public service delivery By: Ayat Abdel Mooty Deputy Minister of State for Sports Former Managing Director of the Gender Responsive Budgeting Initiative in Egypt Former Head of the Equal Opportunities Unit at the Ministry of Finance UNPSA Forum BAHRAIN 24-27 June 2013

2. Egypt’s Context • Limited resources • Rights based approach • Quality of services • Promoting transparency, accountability and efficiency • 25th of January revolution • Post-revolutionary vision

3. Brief Description- Gender Responsive Budgeting in Egypt Initiative Phase (2000-2004) Implementation Phase (2005-2011) Post Revolution Phase (2011- Present) 1 2 3 • The NCW established Equal Opportunities Units (EOU) in all ministries under the Office of the Minister. • The Ministry of Finance adopted the concept , and EOU was established within MOF to act as the link between NCW and the ministry. • Analysis of the National Budget for 2002-2007 was conducted. • Two sectors on Youth and local development were studied. • Brief Packages on GRB were developed and widely distributed. • The inclusion of the EOU within the organizational structure of the Ministry. • Building the capacity of the relevant MOF employees and the selected staff from other Ministries to track, monitor, and evaluate national and local public budgets from a gender and poverty perspective • produce policy recommendations on equal opportunity for women in the budget • create insight of equal opportunities in the national budget revenues and expenditures • facilitate transparency in budget formulation processes • developing the first Arabic e-learning platform. • Initiating the Gender Responsive Social Budgeting Strategy. • Finalizing the capacity development of all local budget employees in 25 governorates in the 5 sectors (Health- Education- Manpower- Social security- Food security) • Launching the Arab e-learning knowledge hub. • Hosting three Study Groups to Egypt from Iraq and Palestine Partnerships: The initiative is a multi- stakeholder initiative between the Ministry of Finance, the National Council for Women, Academic Institutes and UN Women

4. The Implementation Phase (2005-2011) The EOU leading the GRB initiative • The “Equal Opportunities for Women in the National Budget of Egypt” project was technically and financially supported by UN Women and the Dutch Embassy from 2006 till 2011 was lead by the EOU /MOF . • The goals of the EOU : • Ensuring that gender issues mentioned in the national plan are reflected in the national budget. • Promoting gender budgeting in the national budget. • Supporting MOF in transforming the line item budget into PBB that is gender sensitive.

5. The GRB Program Strategy Advocacy Political will Awareness Raising Build a Cadre of Trainers inside MOF Engender the Budget Cycle Policymakers Budget Employees Legislative and Financial Reforms Capacity Building Institutionalization and national ownership Improve Public Service Delivery to vulnerable groups especially women

6. The Methodology • 2. Research and Analysis • Analysis of public fiscal policies from a gender perspective • Analysis of the budget cycle • Analysis of public expenditures from a gender perspective • Gender Analysis of the National Budget (2006-2009) • 3. Legislative and Financial Reforms • Engendering the Call Circular • Amendment of the Budget Law • Development of budget templates to ensure the inclusion of sex disaggregated data of beneficiaries • Inclusion of GRB in the Budget Instructions • 1. Advocacy and Awareness Raising • Gender mainstreaming in the socio-economic plan(2002-2007) (2007-2012) • Work with women Parliamentarians • Media Seminars • Newsletters • Calendar Achievements • Documentary Film • Advocacy Seminars • 4. Capacity Building • Establishment of an expert group from the partners to develop a tailored training manual using a participatory approach • Building the capacities of the budget employees at MOF • Establish a cadre of trainers from MOF budget employees • 6.KnowledgeBuilding and Information Sharing • Translation of Diane Elson Books to Arabic • Development of a tailored knowledge package on GRB in Arabic with 8 modules • Exchange visits • Development of an e-learning platform on GRB to be the first electronic Arabic knowledge hub • 5. Institutional Development • Bridging the gap between the national plan, the national budget and the local authorities • The adoption of information systems and modern technology

7. The Sectors of the Ministry of Finance The GRB project focused on the following sectors: State Budget (127 employees) Municipalities Budget (799 Budget employees) Accounts and Financial Directorates (66 employees)

8. Capacity Building of State Budget Employees The GRB project built the capacities of 127 budget employees from the State Budget Sector from 3 main departments: The Central Budget Department The Administrative Apparatus Department The Services Authorities Department

9. Capacity Building of Municipalities Budget Employees The GRB project built the capacities of almost all local level budget employees who serve 13 service sectors in Egypt’s 27 governorates. The project reached 25 governorates and focused on 5 main sectors (Education- Health, Manpower, Food Security, Social Security) Those 5 sectors were specifically because they have significance in the public’s lives

11. The Capacity Building Results On the Job Trainings conducted by MOF Budget Employees in the Central Budget Department On the Job Trainings conducted by MOF Local Budget Employees in the different governorates

12. Post the Revolution Phase • Development of a Gender Responsive Social Budgeting Strategy in collaboration with Cairo University for the next 5 years (2012-2017) • The launch of the GRB e-learning system, as a knowledge hub for Arabic speaking countries • Continuation of the capacity building of local Budget employees in the remaining governorates in the 5 sectors

13. The Objectives of the Gender Responsive Social Budgeting Strategy • The efficiency of social spending, policy design and delivery mechanisms. • The stabilization of social policy in Egypt. • The equitable distribution by inclusion and identification of marginalized and vulnerable groups.

14. The Economic and Social returns of gender responsive social budgeting • Improving the practice of democracy through increased participation of the community. • Increasing social spending and efficiency in public spending. • Raising the level of transparency in the presentation of public expenditure and sources of funding

15. Challenges • The constant change in Political Leadership • The resistance culture within government employees • The lack of knowledge and belief on concepts related to gender equality and women’s empowerment • Resistance to move from line Item budget to Program based budget • The non- availability of sex- disaggregated data. • The absence of a “cost unit” for each sector and how to calculate it • The absence of a performance criteria

16. Lessons learned • Incentives policies to change from traditional line item budgets to GRB must be developed. • A strong political will is necessary for the implementation of GRB • Legislative and Financial Reforms must be introduced • Gender Analysis must be conducted and linked to the presentation of the national budget • Policy makers should have a background about GRB so they can implement it across their different programs

17. Best Practices Capacity building Conducting on the job trainings in local governorates .It does not only focus on theoretical trainings but encourages budget employees to develop the gender sensitive budget templates in parallel to the traditional line item budgets. Building a cadre of trainers inside the budget department creates national ownership and sustainability. (800 employees) Competencies Introducing legislative reforms through the engendering of the budget process in the budget circular is a key factor to the sustainability and institutionalization of the model Budget reform The institutionalization of the GRB in the Ministry of finance and the presence of the provisions of GRB in the call circular from 2008 till present Institutionalization

18. Successes Stories A well trained cadre of employees from MOF (10 experts) are now hired as experts in GRB Training Transformed the GRB training manual into a curriculum South-to-South Cooperation with Bahrain, Jordan, Syria and Morocco 2 Before and after the 25th of January 1 3 A study tour of Iraq and Palestine was conducted to Explore the Egyptian experience on GRB 4 The Ministry of State for Sports in cooperation with UN Women and an NGO applied GRB in their budgeting The Budget Circular of 2011/2012 and2012/2013 still contained provisions on GRB despite the political changes 6 5

19. Thank you