Gender budgeting as feminist policy change: framework of favourable conditions

Gender budget analysis has been advocated as an approach to gender equality for over thirty years since its appearance as the ‘women’s budgets’ in 1980’s Australia and in the Beijing Platforms for Action in 1995. Throughout this period approaches to its adoption and implementation globally have varied, depending on country and governance contexts, the actors involved and the ways in which gender budgeting has been framed. To date much of the literature has presented single cases either of specific tools related to the implementation of gender budget analysis or of attempts at adoption in specific government contexts. This paper presents a Framework of Favourable Conditions on the adoption and implementation of gender budgeting. This was initially developed from a review of gender budgeting literature and analysis of three sub-national case studies of adoption and implementation in Spain and the UK (Scotland) from 2000-2009. This paper applies the Framework to other experiences of adoption and implementation of gender budgeting in the EU and globally as presented through the European Gender Budgeting Network and experiences discussed previously in Feminist Economics. In testing and refining he original Framework, this paper argues that the Framework is a useful analytical tool that supports practical insight and application for advocates, scholars and policymakers seeking to promote and adopt gender budgeting as a form of feminist policy change.