Introductory Workshop on Gender-Responsive Planning & Budgeting & role of Multi-Party Women’s Caucus, with Minister

Multi-Party Women’s Caucus

12 March 2020
Chairperson: Ms N Bilankulu (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Multiparty Women’s Caucus was convened to receive two briefings: the Gender Responsive Budgeting and Planning Background, and the Role of the Multi- Party Women’s Caucus in Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting. Members were very concerned at receiving 16 apologies for absenteeism and the Chairperson aptly remarked that ‘since the Chief Whip was present, we should make attendance of this Committee compulsory’

Members heard that Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) was defined as an approach that aimed to mainstream gender in economic policy making and seeks to transform the entire budgetary process. Members welcomed the presentation and acknowledged the importance of the workshop in terms of the insight it offered. They felt that it laid sufficient stress on the importance to institutionalise gender budgeting in all government departments. Members asked the Committee to get a full picture of the implementation progress of the policy framework since it began 27 September so that the importance of the framework could be emphasised to help enable Members in their oversight work. The Committee complained about the lack of attendance at the meeting.

The Committee asked for the specific LGBTQI expenditure; and since people in this country were not forced to ‘come out’, Members asked how to desegregate the expenditure of the LGBTQI population. Members highlighted the link that the National Gender Machinery Resuscitation could help develop a mechanism so that gender-related focal points could be developed within each department.  Members expressed their all-round support for continuous workshops to help develop better strategies to work with other sectors to address women’s issues together.

Members appealed to all women in all political parties to push the framework within their own parties as it (the framework) needs to be absorbed into their minds and not treated as a separate check list. Members asked female Members to encourage and mobilise women to be involved in the process as this was a collaborative effort to ensure the consistency between national and local governments in having the same objectives.

The Minister emphasised that the key issues were responsiveness and accountability and added that financial exclusion remained a huge challenge for women in government departments. She noted with dismay that there was a pay difference between male and female Chief Directors’. The Minister said that this framework needed to be implemented from National Treasury to provinces and right down to municipalities.

Meeting report

Introductory remarks by the Chairperson

The Chairperson asked Members to sit close to her seat at the podium. Members refused to do this to which the Chairperson remarked that it was sexism. She said that females usually fought amongst themselves while if it had been a male colleague that had just given the order, all females would have followed suit. Members then moved up to their seats at the front of the chamber.

The Chairperson asked Members to engage in a moment of silence. She then welcomed all the women who were attending this workshop and said that she hoped that women were still safe. She recalled the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) marking the Corona virus as a pandemic. She remarked on International Women’s Day and noted that this marked the 25th year after the Belgium Conference and asked South African women to take a lesson of what has been learnt in the past to ensure that all women’s issues are taken care of. She called for unity across party lines to address women’s issue such as gender mainstreaming. She expressed her confidence in Members’ consciousness in what ought to be done. The purpose of the day is to brief Members on what the mandates were to improve women’s position in society. She also asked Members to listen to each other because one person cannot know everything.

The Committee Secretary indicated that she had received 14 apologies.

The Chairperson asked if the Committee if they would accept 14 apologies.

A Member said that she knew all of them and also offered apologies on behalf of Ms Z Nkomo (ANC).The Deputy Chief Whip also offered an apology. Hence, there were 16 apologies received by the Committee in total.

A Member suggested making a list of all the political parties who were absent because this is a programme in Parliament and attendance is important.

The Chairperson said she had only seen two Members from Democratic Alliance. Members from the Economic Freedom Fighters had left the venue earlier. There was one Member from the IFP and she made apologies on behalf of Ms L van der Merwe (IFP) and Ms Z Majozi (IFP) as the latter was attending a funeral in Johannesburg.

The Chairperson said ‘since the Chief Whip was present, we could make attendance of this Committee compulsory’?

The Chairperson said that it was good that the Chief Whip was present and then one could come to a resolution.

Briefing on Gender-Responsive Budgeting and Planning

Ms Joy Watson, Senior Researcher: Parliament Research Unit, presented the Gender-Responsive Budget and Planning to the Committee.

Ms Watson explained to Members what Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) was. It was defined as an approach that aimed to mainstream gender in economic policy making and seeks to transform the entire budgetary process. Gender budgeting refers not only to expenditures earmarked for women, but also to an analysis of the entire budget from a gender perspective, including security, health, education, public works and so on to ensure that the allocations and resulting impact is gender sensitive. GRB was important in allocating resources, distributing income and wealth and stabilising the economy.

The Senior Researcher then provided the background to the Gender Responsive Budget’s emergence internationally and its emergence in South Africa. The Women’s Budget in South Africa focused on five key areas of analysis:

  • The situation of women, men, boys and girls in a given sector;
  • Do policies and programmes of government address the gender gaps identified above?
  • Has government budgeted sufficiently to implement gender sensitive policy and programmes?
  • What are the outputs and delivery of budgets?
  • What are the outcomes?

Ms Watson emphasised that the Women’s Budget was a collaborative alliance between civil society, government and the legislature and its ability to draw together participants from different backgrounds and experiences.

Ms Watson briefed the Committee of the role of Parliament in Gender Responsive Budgeting. Part of Parliament’s role is to ensure that government service delivery promotes gender equality, and that the impact thereof on women, men, boys and girls and the issues of LGBTIQ+ persons are analysed and brought to the fore. The intersectionality of gender with other forms of identity such as race, class, sexual orientation and age, should be taken into account. In South Africa, given a history of statutory discrimination, black communities endure the most horrific levels of poverty and are particularly dependent on the state for access to public resources. In monitoring the impact of government service delivery, attempts should be made to collate sex disaggregated data. Key questions asked included:

  • Are monies ring-fenced for issues like gender-based issues such as GBV?
  • What are the spending priorities and non- priorities of government?
  • What are the gendered implications of this?

Ms Watson described the reality from around 2000 till 2012 in which gender responsive budgeting in the state dwindled away. It was often operated in isolation without the requisite expertise and in the absence of an overarching institutional framework. This was when the government attempted to revive Gender Responsive Budgeting in 2012. In September 2017, the Multi-Party Women’s Caucus (MPWC) at Parliament took a decision to monitor the institutionalisation of gender responsive budgeting in government. This was partly as a result of the failure of the Department of Women to deliver in this regard, but was also influenced by the work of the SADC Parliamentary Forum to institutionalise gender budgeting through the SADC Guidelines on Gender Responsive Budgeting. The MPWC met with the National Treasury in 2017 as part of an attempt to get it to drive work in this regard.

Ms Watson informed the Committee that the key phases of gender analysis included:

  • Strategic plans and annual performance plans;
  • Budgets;
  • Sources of revenue;
  • Budget reviews; and
  • Expenditure reports

Ms Watson briefed members on the development of the GPBF framework. The South African government hosted a Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting summit on 29 -30 November 2018. The Department of Women has since produced a draft GPBF. The GPBF is structured so that it presents a problem analysis on the need for GRPB, a consideration of the related legal and policy frameworks, a situational analysis, core considerations for engaging with gender in budgets, a list of strategic focus areas and a scope of stakeholder engagement. The key challenges of this framework were identified as:

  • The limitations of the current draft framework on gender responsive planning and budgeting as a policy framework that strengthens institutional capacity at national, provincial and local level for aligning service delivery with the imperatives of promoting gender equity;
  • The lack of expertise in the state to take up gender responsive planning and budgeting;
  • The difficulty in accessing disaggregated data for reviewing planning and budgeting processes from a gender perspective; and
  • The lack of a framework for incorporating gender as an analytical variable into government’s monitoring and evaluation processes.

Ms Watson provided Members with some tools for a gender sensitive analysis of budgets such as overseeing the implementation of legislation and policy, overseeing government service delivery, overseeing implementation of international and regional instruments,  overseeing public participation in parliamentary processes, overseeing public expenditure/budgets, overseeing gender sensitivity internally within Parliament,  and overseeing commitments made by Parliament with regard to promoting gender equality. 

Briefing on the role of the Multi-Party Women’s Caucus

Ms Tembakazi Mpapela, Content Advisor: Parliament, briefed Members on the role of the multiparty women’s caucus in gender-responsive budgeting. The Multiparty Women’s Caucus (MPWC), as a platform for women members of Parliament, has a crucial role to play in gender responsive planning and budgeting. Through individual memberships in various Portfolio and Select Committees, and as a collective, the MPWC is positioned to impact on the implementation of gender responsive planning and budgeting in Parliament.

Members of the MPWC have memberships in various Portfolio and Select Committees and on behalf of the MPWC can ensure gender responsive planning and budgeting during oversight and other Committee work. The MPWC as a collective is undertaking to implement Gender Responsive Planning and budgeting initiatives through some of the identified focus areas.

The Content Advisor then explained the individual role of Members of MPWC in various committees. She then explained to Members the role of MPWC as a collective in Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting. The MPWC identified a few initiatives and these are:

  • Briefing by the Ministry for Women, Youth and Persons with disabilities on Gender Responsive Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluation and Auditing (GRPBMEA) framework;
  • Sanitary dignity project;
  • Lobbying for gender sensitive parliament and work places; and
  • Strengthening of the national gender machinery

The Content Advisor concluded that the MPWC is empowered by Joint Rules to be an advisory and influencing body promoting the discussion of women’s issues in Parliament and as such can make submissions to portfolio and select committees about issues affecting women. This implies that the MPWC as a collective can make submissions to various committees to influence and advocate for adoption of gender responsive laws and programs.

Discussion

Ms F Masiko (ANC) welcomed the presentation and acknowledged the importance of the workshop in terms of the insight it offered. She stressed the importance to institutionalise gender budgeting in all government departments. She asked the Committee to get a full picture of the implementation progress of the policy framework since it began 27 September. She reminded Members that government officials would shy away if there was no clear guiding framework. A clear framework would also help Members to perform their oversight duty. She enquired about the obligation of the women’s caucus. It was very important and she suggested that male colleagues should be participating as well.

A Member said that she agreed with institutionalisation which is important to everyone so that this Committee could monitor the progress of various departments.

A Member commented that she also wanted to emphasise the importance of the framework so Members would be able to engage in their oversight work. She enquired about the machinery on the ground. She asked this because of the lack of support and monitoring on the ground such as at municipal level and it is the responsibility of the Committee to ensure implementation. The Committee needed to ensure that it could strengthen gender-budgeting in every government department. To be able to do this, she wanted to be provided with some relevant and succinct pointers in the format of a check list. She raised the issue with regard to male colleagues’ insensitive attitude to gender budgeting also given that the male-dominated government was a challenge.

Ms N Sharif (DA) commented that she was looking forward to having this framework and asked the Committee to support this framework. Since this framework had been in use from 1996-2000, she wanted to know what had been employed afterwards. She wanted to know the specific LGBTQI expenditure. Since we do not force people to come out, she asked how to desegregate the expenditure of the LGBTQI population. In terms of women’s role in terms of monitoring and oversight, she complained about the lack of attendance at the meeting. She remarked that she had experienced that other women sometimes do not support women’s causes and advocacy. She suggested that men should also be involved in this discussion. She was happy to hear about Day Care Centres in the budgeting. Given her personal experience, it was a delightful thing to hear that such help was offered to assist young women who are pursuing a professional life.

A Member asked whether the implementing instruments were user friendly and able to assist the Department to do gender-budget mainstreaming. She said the important part is to perform oversight based on those indicators. She recommended including KPI’s of Directors-General so that there would be a budget from a government that could cater for women. She agreed with the view that the Committee should review ways to get all Members including males to participate in this process. She highlighted the link that the National Gender Machinery Resuscitation could help develop a mechanism so that gender-related focal points could be developed within each department.

A Member expressed her support for the workshop. She said that it could help them to engage with constituencies. She noted the presentation did not mention gender equality and the Public Finance Management Act. She said that she knew that government departments always use the lack of resources as a reason to not include gender-responsive budget into their budgets, so she held the view that continuous workshops would help Members to develop better strategies to work with other sectors to address women’s issues together. She requested a timeframe on what needs to be done. She stressed the importance of work at the local level. She emphasised the point that women’s issues are not only women’s issues, it involved men as well.

A Member congratulated the Minister of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities for receiving the framework. She said receiving is one thing and having it done is another. She proposed that this document should be sent to every governmental department. She asked Members to be mindful of government officials’ reaction upon receiving this framework as it would be regarded as a simple tick box. In order to avoid this and address the relevant issues, it needs a collaborative effort across all parties. Hence she appealed to all women in all political parties to push the framework within their own parties. Then she stressed the importance of consistency for gender-responsive budgeting and that it cannot be abandoned simply because an official is replaced by another. She commented that some government officials saw women’s issue as a burden and do not place equal emphasis on the issue. The framework needs to be absorbed into their minds and not treated as a separate check list. She recalled her own experience of dealing with Ministers and Directors-General and found that many times these officials were oblivious to women’s issue. She called for unity in the Committee.

A Member supported and agreed that the workshop was helpful. She asked for more information on the processes of government and how it was beginning to implement this framework. She appealed for women to not be tired of mobilising each other. She highlighted that the issue is how to mobilise women to implement this framework since they are everywhere in government. She criticised those lame excuses given by government officials for not recruiting female members. Some people for instance in technical support would cite a lack of female applicants as an excuse not to employ them. She asked female members to encourage and mobilise women to be involved in the process. She believed that distinctions ought to be made between female with disabilities and male with disabilities, this category needs to be more detailed.

Ms S Lucas (ANC; Deputy Chairperson of the NCOP) commented that gender-responsive budgeting had been discussed at the provincial government meeting in which she was present last month. She emphasised the collaborative effort to ensure the consistency between national and local governments in having the same objectives. She informed Members of the intricate oversight role that this Committee would perform and recommended a collaborative effort with other oversight bodies in order to oversee all government departments’ implementation of the framework. She recommended that the report of Gender Commission would assist Members to understand how provinces are implementing gender responsive budgeting. The key issues are responsiveness and accountability.

A Member said that although policies have been made over the years, implementation is more important and a concrete strategy plan and a timeframe are needed. By engaging with local government, she suggested that the Committee should be able to say that for example in five years’ time what can women achieve in terms of housing development, etcetera. She asked for female politicians and Ministers to assist women.

The Chairperson thanked all Members for their contributions and the presence of the Deputy Chair, Ministers and Chief Whip. She remarked that women took themselves for granted and often tended to undermine each other.

The Minister’s remarks

Ms Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and People with Disabilities, made her remark on the presentation. She said that whilst women were so occupied with child rearing and caring work, they often forgot that their biggest enemy is patriarchy. This common enemy could provide Members across political parties with the solidarity they need to conduct work on this Committee. She said although the framework had been adopted and shared by all Members, she still found that financial exclusion remained to be a huge challenge for women within government departments. She noted that there was a pay difference between male and female Chief Directors. On average, male Chief Directors earn more than their female counterparts. She appealed people to use all resources to liberate women. She mentioned gender-based violence and questioned the delay of the response. She also encouraged the younger generations to take over the baton to carry on the mission to advocate for women’s issues and rights. She said that this framework needed to be implemented from National Treasury to provinces and to municipalities.  

Ms P Majodina (ANC), Chief Whip of the Majority Party, commented that it was late for this Committee to make any impact for the 2020/21 financial year since budget allocation had already take place. This Committee must now focus on making an impact for the 2021/22 financial year. She acknowledged that it was a good start. She recalled an incident in which she was attending a Pan-Africanism conference. She had observed from the conference that the budget is not responsive to gender-related issues. She said everyone has a responsibility to raise awareness about the Gender-Responsive Budget. She stressed the importance of setting clear targets to guide the Committee’s oversight work.

Content Advisor’s Remarks

The Content Advisor made a suggestion that male Members of Parliament should also be included and briefed on Gender-Responsive Budgeting. She also suggested strengthening the National Gender Machinery and to combine the framework and the machinery. She said that maybe it would give some insight as to how this Committee could continue its work.

The Chairperson said that this caucus needed to take on issues that Members all felt needed attention. She recognised the usefulness of the workshop programme. She urged for unity among women.

The meeting was adjourned.

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