Turkish Parliament holds gender-responsive budgeting workshop
At a UN Women workshop, Turkish parliamentarians explore ways to consider gender equality in policy making processes and budgets of Turkish Parliament.Date:
The potential of budgets to have an impact on gender equality was a key theme of a recent two-day UN Women workshop in Ankara that brought together 100 administrators, legislative experts and Members of Parliament from all political parties in Turkey.
Gender-responsive planning and budgeting ensures that fiscal resources are generated and allocated in a way that respond to the different needs and rights of women and girls.
The event was part of a UN Women project – Gender Equality in Political Leadership and Participation in Turkey – which it implements in partnership with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the Committee on Equality of Opportunity for Women and Men (EOC) of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TGNA).
Funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), UN Women project supports efforts by the EOC and Turkish parliamentarians to ensure that Turkey’s laws and policy making processes and budgets advance gender equality and women’s empowerment and political participation.
“Developed countries consider gender equality in their policy making processes. We need to include gender responsive budgeting perspective in all our plans and policies,” said Ms. Radiye Sezer Katırcıoğlu, EOC Chairperson.
At the workshop, legislative expert in gender responsive budgeting, Mr. Mustafa Şahin:
- Defined the scope and objectives of gender responsive budgeting
- Analyzed budget from a gender equality perspective
- Illustrated the potential of budgets to improve or worsen gender equality
- Discussed how Turkey’s budgetary processes could benefit from international good practices in gender-responsive budgeting.
UN Women Project Coordinator Neşe Çakır said that gender responsive budgeting is key to improve gender equality: “Gender equality starts from budgeting. Bodies of the Turkish Assembly can prepare budgets by analysing target groups who benefit from public services with a gender equality perspective. Gender responsive budgeting is important to empower women.”
Advisor to the Presidency Ms. Alev Dedegil said that budgeting is an important instrument to empower women and eliminate inequalities. Ms. Dedegil proposed that the TGNA establish a joint sub-commission to focus on gender responsive budgeting with EOC and the Planning and Budgeting Commission members.