How Gender Budgeting Contributes to More Informed Public Policy

“As a student and a woman from a country (Zimbabwe) and continent with significant levels of inequality, I am very familiar with the pervasiveness of gender imbalance – and the devastating consequences it has especially on women,” says second-year MPA student Sikhathele Nkala. Like most countries in Africa, Zimbabwe has adopted progressive legislation in recent years to address these gender imbalances. Despite this, Nkala says that the day-to-day experiences of women demonstrate that gender inequality and exclusion of women’s concerns and priorities in policy making is pervasive. “In local communities and at national and regional meetings, gender-related issues or topics still fall under the “Any Other Business” (AOB) category,” says Nkala.

Nkala would like to contribute toward building a Zimbabwe where, she says, “citizens are treated equally – where women are able to participate in national and regional policy development and can also enjoy the benefit of those policies.” Partly as a result of a course she took at SPP during the winter term, Nkala has gained a keen appreciation for the importance of gender budgeting. “Before I took the gender budgeting course, I knew about gender analysis and gender mainstreaming, I knew that budgets are among the strongest pillars of national macroeconomic policies, but I never knew how gender could be incorporated into the macroeconomic policy processes,” she says.

Nkala chose to write her term paper on the impact of the  Electricity Prepayment Policy on poor women in the city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. “What I found,” says Nkala, “was that there was no consideration given to gender when the electricity prepayment policy was formulated.” She found also that the policy disproportionately impacted women, who consume more electricity than men.

Professor Barati-Stec sent Nkala’s paper to a colleague at ICMA (International City/County Management Association). “They were sufficiently impressed that they are reconsidering their grant structure for installing solar panels in African homes,” says Barati-Stec. “Often, we simply accept that urban dwellers enjoy electricity services and therefore exclude them from our solar-cooking net. This paper reminded us to take a closer look!” commented David Grossman, ICMA director.