Gender Mainstreaming presentation for NACEN, Faridabad, 10th November 2017

1. Dr. Paramita Majumdar
Senior Consultant, GRB, UNWomen
National Academy Of Customs Excise And Narcotics (NACEN),
Faridabad
10 November,2017

3. HOW?

5.  India ranks 100 in 2017 - ease of doing
business - result of all-round and multi-sectoral
reform push
 Easier business environment is leading to historic
opportunities for our entrepreneurs, particularly
medium and small scale sector and bringing more
prosperity
 India has jumped 53 places from 172 to 119 on
ease of paying taxes, leapt over to the 4th rank
on protecting minority investors and moved
15 places from 44 to 29 on ease of businesses
getting credit.
Source:
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/in-big-boost-india-jumps-30-pla

7.  Women (15-49 years) who are literate (%) 81.4 61.5 68.4
 Men (15-49 years) who are literate (%) 90.8 82.6 85.7
 Women (15-49 years) with 10 or more years of schooling (%) 51.5 27.3 35.7
 Households using clean fuel for cooking (%) 80.6 (U) 24.0 (R) 43.8 (T)
 Female sterilization (%) 35.7 (U) 36.1 (R) 36.0 (T)
 Male sterilization – 0.3 % across rural and urban areas
 Anaemia amongst 15-49 years (%) Urban Women 50.8 ; Men -18.4 ; and Rural
Women – 54.2; Men (U) 25.2 (R)
 Ever-married women who have ever experienced spousal violence 28.8%
 38.4 % women owning a house and/or land (alone or jointly with others)
 53%Women having a bank or savings account that they themselves use
 1.2% Women and 29.2% Men consume alcohol
Source: NFHS-4, 2015-16

9.  Effective gender mainstreaming should be context-and content-
oriented. This means a much more qualitative analysis over and
beyond the quantitative presentation.
 Pre-requisites for context and content analysis -
 Profiling generally provides a quantitative picture of the status of men
and women in any given sector, e.g. employment at university.
 Gender analysis is an essential first step of collecting and analysing
sex-disaggregated information in order to understand gender
differences and how these differences may have an effect on policies'
effectiveness.
 Gender audit is an evaluation process aimed at figuring out whether
set policies or interventions are doing that which they are meant to be
doing. It is an Institution’s self-assessment, monitoring and evaluation of
interventions with the broad aim of diagnosis and transformation.

10. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is a process
that entails incorporating a gender perspective at
various stages - planning/ policy/ programme
formulation, assessment of needs of target groups,
allocation of resources, implementation, impact
assessment, reprioritization of resources.
Gender Responsive Budget and Gender
Mainstreaming are outcomes of the process
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process product process product process product
policy
formulation
policy
statement
budget
compilation budget
expenditure
on activities outcomes
revenue
collection
Policy appraisal
(Gender appraisal) Audit
(Gender Audit)
Budget appraisal
(Gender budgeting)

13. Programmatic Dimensions Organisational Dimensions
1. Situational Analysis
2. Policy Analysis including program
design, guidelines and framework of
implementation
3. Budgetary Allocations &
Expenditure
4. Monitoring
5. Impact Analysis / Evaluation
1. Organisational Culture –
(Mechanisms/Practices/Attitudes )
2. Gender Policy & Staffing
3. Resources spent on gender
mainstreaming e.g. Capacity
Building
4. Gender sensitive products and
services (infrastructure)
5. Advocacy, and communication
strategy
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Budget Call Circular
Gender Budget Statement
Pre-Budget Consultations
Program Guidelines
Monitoring Reports
Staff & Fund Flow
Performance monitoring
Gender Disaggregated data
Using Gender Sensitive
Checklist
Outcome Budget
Performance Audit Parliamentary
Standing Committee
Budget
Cycle
(ii) Budget Decision making
(i) Budget Planning

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16.  Do tax policies contain gender biases that are disadvantageous
to women and where are they embedded?
 Can tax policy help in eventually eliminating these gender
biases and contribute to the enjoyment of women’s economic
rights and their economic empowerment?

17.  Poverty …..feminization of poverty …..inequality exists
 Labour Force participation …..wage gap exists
 Women’s concentration in informal sector
 Women overrepresented in the agricultural sector… yet, have
little or no access to key assets, including land ......men
generally hold formal land titles .....Social norms may dictate
that businesses are owned by male family members although
women may supply labour
 Women bear the heavy burden of care labour – fiscal policy
ignores women’s unpaid labour
Gender Equality & Taxation have rarely been discussed together
and the potential and existing links have largely been ignored

18.  Government has issued gender equality statements /policies and has
begun tracking data, but have not changed budget allocations
 Spending on physical infrastructure is treated as an investment,
but spending on social infrastructure, such as child care, as a cost.
Yet such spending also increases productivity and growth - partly by
increasing the number of women in the workforce.
 Investment in clean water and electricity eases housework, freeing
time for mothers to earn money and for girls to go to school.
Cutting funding may save money in the short term, but when
women spend their days fetching water, growth suffers
 Lack of child care forces women to choose between work and
family.

19.  In a co-operative federalism, it is high time that the Finance
Commission “own” and integrate the gender concerns
articulated in the Verma Committee’s proposed
“Bill of Rights” - either in formula-based unconditional grants
with a gender indicator/index as one of the criteria (just as a
“climate change” variable appeared in the formula of the 14th
Finance Commission in sharing the divisible tax pool with the
States), or as specific-purpose grants to the States to engage in
meaningful gender-budgeting fiscal policy practices at the sub-
national level.

20.  Training Institutions like NACEN can support policy makers
and planners in their efforts to reform tax policy and tax
administration to ensure that tax systems do not impact
negatively on women.
 Areas of reform may include:
 Capacity building in tax policy vis-a-vis gender equality
within the Ministry of Finance and tax administration as well
as of decision makers and women’s organizations
 Gender-sensitive revenue incidence analysis
 Research to increase knowledge about the link between
gender equality and revenue raising/tax policies
 Strengthening oversight and civil society to ensure
accountability and responsiveness of government in case of
increased tax revenues.

21.  Commit financial resources, however limited, to
demonstrating organisational commitment to gender-
responsive reforms
 Review procedures and protocols to ensure that they are non-
discriminatory, include gender sensitive language and
incorporate the different needs of men, women, girls and boys
 Vulnerability mapping - across groups, across sectors
 Display of information
 Collaborate with relevant government and civil society actors
to ensure more effective responses to gender equality