Gender Inequity, Transparency, Poor Participation, Serious Challenges in Nigeria Budgeting Process – Expert
By Uangbaoje Alex, Kaduna
A development expert have identified lack of gender equity, lack of transparency, frivolous expenditure budgeting, poor prioritization of key essential sectors, poor enforcement mechanisms of the Auditor General’s reports, poor participation of citizens amongst others as some of the major challenges facing budgeting process in Nigeria.
Miss Ziliha Lawal, State Lead, Follow the Money an initiative of Connected Development (CODE), Kaduna Chapter made the observation on Wednesday in Kaduna at a two-day Youth Mobilization meeting on Tax, Public Finance and Gender Responsive Public Service (GRPS), organized by ActionAid Nigeria.
She said her analysis of the Nigeria budget overtime, without gender equity presented the country as a poor nation, despite the bogus annual budgets running into trillions of naira, even though the country is far ahead of most of her competitors in terms of natural and human resources.
According to her, gender equity in budgeting will help the country to improve socio-economic issues, improve policy efficiency and create some internal benefits for the governments.
Ziliha, explained that gender budgeting is not a separate budget for women, but that it simply means analysing any form of public expenditure, or method of raising public money, from a gender perspective.
“A tool for testing a government’s gender mainstreaming commitments
Gender budgeting is the use of fiscal policy and administration to promote gender equality and girls’ and women’s development.” She added.
She insisted that gender budgeting is necessary because policies affect women and men differently due to the existing pattern of gender inequalities, also evaluate the impact on the unpaid economy as well as paid economy
“The aim of gender budgeting is to; integrate a gender analysis into economic policy, promote greater accountability for government’s commitment to gender equality and to change budgets and policies.
“Equalize females’ access to education, improve maternal and related child health, reduce unpaid time demands on women and girls through improved infrastructure. Address women’s lack of economic opportunity.” She said.
