The destabilising impact of the COVID-19 crisis calls for the formulation of policies, budgets and plans that protect the health, livelihood and access to education for all, including the most vulnerable and marginalised; and calls for adaptation to the economic and fiscal consequences caused by the pandemic.
Equitable Budgeting is a practical and effective answer to this challenge. Equitable budgeting considers the different needs of women, men and marginalised groups, and the differential impact of policies on each group to foster meaningful access to public goods and services for all. It makes governments accountable for translating their equity commitments into budgetary commitments and actual expenditure. Equitable Budgeting contributes to building fairer and more peaceful societies.
Ahead of the 2021 budget preparation, PERL has developed an Equitable Budgeting Guide. The guide describes practices that Nigerian States can adopt to develop and implement gender equitable and socially inclusive budgets and provides step-by-step directions and tools to make the task easier.
The resources below come from a PERL webinar titled “Introduction to Equitable Budgeting”, held on 18th June, 2020 and hosted by the Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) States Women in Governance (WinG) Community of Practice members and their teams. The online session was aimed at building the capacity of the WinG CoP members on equitable budgeting and enabling them to influence budgets, policies and strategies to be more inclusive and equitable ahead of the 2021 budget preparation. PERL presented its new Equitable Budgeting Guide developed as part of its Public Financial Management Suite.
Representatives of central planning and budgeting Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) attended the webinar, as well as officials from service delivery MDAs and civil society groups and media.
Please reach out to PERL for further guidance as you prepare your state's 2021 budget and be on the look-out for additional public financial management and equitable budgeting resources that PERL will release in the coming weeks!
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