Gender budgeting to realise the obligation to provide budgetary resources to realise women's rights

What is it about?

Articles 4(2)(i), 10(3) and 26(2) of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) impose an obligation on states to provide sufficient budgetary resources to realise women’s human rights. Despite the fact that several African countries have ratified the Maputo Protocol, there is still insufficient budgetary allocation to realise women’s human rights. This article presents gender budgeting as a step that African states can take towards the provision of sufficient resources to realise women’s human rights. It studies the con- cept of gender budgeting and its objectives to demonstrate the link between gender budgeting and the provision of budgetary resources to realise women’s human rights. It also studies the challenges that states face in the adoption of gender budgeting and concludes that despite the fact that there are challenges, they can be overcome if states show the required will to do so.

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Why is it important?

It has been more than 10 years since the adoption of the Maputo Protocol and as stated above, women’s human rights on the continent still continue to be violated. Very often, scarce resources act as an escape route for the non-implementation of the rights protected by the Maputo Protocol. The Maputo Protocol clearly imposes an obligation on states to provide budgetary allocations to implement the rights protected therein. Despite the adoption of different gender budgeting initiatives, no African country has completely integrated gender budgeting in its budgeting processes. This can be the result of a lack of gender budgeting framework and guidelines at the level of the AU. By making reference to the SADC guidelines and the South African initiatives, this research intends to present a framework within which gender budgeting initiatives could operate in Africa.