CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOP ON GENDER RESPONSIVE BUDGETING COMMUNIQUÉ

 January 21, 2020

CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOP ON GENDER RESPONSIVE BUDGETING

COMMUNIQUÉ

1. INTRODUCTION

The Capacity Building Workshop on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) was convened by Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) with the support of the European Union-United Nations Spotlight Initiative at Hotel De Bently, Utako Abuja on January 20 and 21 2020. Participation was drawn from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Women’s Groups, the Media and Key Populations from Spotlight’s Focal States of Adamawa, Cross River, Ebonyi, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Sokoto.

The workshop is part of a series of activities under the Spotlight Initiative which seeks to eliminate violence against women and girls with the overall vision of a Nigeria where women and girls, particularly the most vulnerable, live a life free from violence and harmful practices.

The workshop was convened to build the capacity of the aforementioned stakeholders on GRB in the context of the overwhelming need to eradicate Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), Harmful Practices (HP) and to promote the Sexual and Reproductive Health/Rights (SRHR) of women and girls. The workshop sought to improve the skills of participants for interventions in the preparation, passage, monitoring of implementation, reporting, evaluation and audit of Federal, State and Local government budgets from the gender perspective.

The following presentations were made:

• Mainstreaming Gender in the Budget/Public Finance Management.
• Understanding GRB in the Context of SGBV, VAWG, HP and the SRHR of women and girls.
• Legal Standards and Policies on SGBV, VAWG, HP and SRHR of women and girls.
• Gender and the Budget.
• Preliminary Findings of the Research on Budgets and SGBV, VAWP, HP and SRHR of women and girls in Adamawa, Cross River, Ebonyi, FCT, Lagos and Sokoto States.
• Gender Sensitive Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E).
• Practical Interventions in Gender responsive Budgeting in the Context of SGBV, VAWG, HP and SRHR of women and girls.

2. OBSERVATIONS

The Workshop Made the Following Observations

a. Contextually, GRB is premised on Nigeria’s national and international obligations under a multiplicity of standards to respect, protect and fulfil the fundamental rights and freedoms of women and girls to freedom from violence, inhuman and degrading treatment and to guarantee their dignity and personhood.

b. The standards include the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), National Gender Policy, Child Rights Act, Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, National Policy on the Elimination of FGM/C, Strategy to End Child Marriage, Sexual Harassment Policy, Gender and Equal Opportunities Policy, Universal Basic Education Act/National Policy on Basic Education, Maternal and Reproductive Health Policies, etc.

c. The obligation to respect forbids all tiers of government from taking steps that violate existing and guaranteed rights. The obligation to protect mandates the state to take steps to ensure that third parties do not violate the rights of women to human dignity and freedom from violence. The obligation to fulfil requires concrete and targeted administrative, legislative, judicial and budgetary measures to practically fulfil the rights of women and girls to freedom from violence and enhance their enjoyment of SRHR.

d. Federal, state and local government budgets come under the obligation to fulfil which mandates the state to take steps to the maximum of available resources for the immediate/progressive realisation of freedom from violence.

e. A number of key government agencies need to be engaged for the eradication of SGBV, VAWG, HP and promotion of SRHR. These include the Ministries of Women Affairs, Education, Health, Finance/Budget and Economic Development, Justice and Law Enforcement Agencies, Bureau of Statistics, Anti-human Trafficking Agencies, the Legislature, etc.

f. SGBV and VAWG manifests in several dimensions and these include domestic violence, forced sexual activities by a sexual partner and rape. Harmful practices manifestations including: female genital mutilation; early marriage and teenage motherhood; as well as widow’s maltreatment.

g. Extant budgeting practices at the Federal, State and Local government levels do not mainstream gender in the preparation, approval, implementation, monitoring, reporting, evaluation and audit of the budget.

h. Civil society has hardly engaged the budgeting process from the gender perspective.

3. RESOLUTIONS

Based OnThe Foregoing Observations, The Workshop Resolved As Follows:

a. Governments should mainstream gender sensitivity in all stages of the budgeting cycle from preparation, passage and approval, monitoring and reporting, evaluation and audit. This should be facilitated by the gathering and analysis of relevant gender disaggregated data by the National Bureau of Statistics and other data gathering agencies.

b. Nigeria should activate its law enforcement mechanisms and rule of law institutions for the protection of the rights of women to freedom from violence. This will involve training and capacity building, increased budgetary provisions accompanied by full releases and utilization of appropriated funds.

c. The Audit Reform Bill currently pending in the National Assembly should specifically include gender audit as one of the audits to be carried out by the Auditor-General of the Federation.

d. Governments should deploy the maximum of available resources for the protection of women from violence. This should not be limited to financial resources but should include human, information, technology and ecological resources.

e. Civil society should start actively engaging the budgeting process from the gender perspective at the Federal, State and Local government levels. This should include the engagement of the relevant MDAs and their budgeting frameworks starting from the medium-term sector strategies.

f. The preparation and dissemination of a Gender Budget Statement by Civil Society in collaboration with relevant agencies of government for the year 2021 budget cycle should be a good starting point for gender responsive budgeting.

g. All standards on the eradication of SGBV, VAWG, HP and the promotion of the SRHR of women and girls should be costed and an implementation framework drawn up.

h. Participants acknowledged the initiative of CSJ, the support of the European Union-United Nations, the collaboration of the Ministry of Women Affairs and urged CSJ to facilitate the continued engagement of the budgeting process by CSOs in Nigeria.

Eze Onyekpere                                                       Aishatu Margima               

Centre for Social Justice             Women and Youth Empowerment for Advancement

                                                    and Health Initiative

Sunbo Oladipo                                                                    Mma Odi

Centre for Women’s Health and Information                  ACE-Nigeria