Strategizing for improved gender budgeting in the 9th Parliament

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Hon. Kadaga meeting members of UWOPA and FOWODE

In a move to strengthen advocacy for gender budgeting in government sectors, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Kadaga convened a meeting attended by Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) and the Uganda Women’s Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) Executive Committee to discuss new strategies to enhance gender budgeting in the 9th parliament. 

The Deputy Speaker noted that despite FOWODE’s engagement with parliamentarians and government technocrats at national and district level for improved gender budgeting, there is little progress registered in this area. Members then shared opinions on how to take gender budgeting advocacy to another level and both long and short-term strategies were proposed. These included the need to demystify gender perceptions through demonstrating how gender budgeting affects men and women as well as to unpack gender budgeting message as it is broad.

UWOPA was tasked to indentify gender flag bearers from each of the current parliamentary committees who will initiate discussions on gender and equity in the various committees that are currently preparing to review the next financial year’s indicative figures released by Ministry of Finance. It was agreed that FOWODE develops a checklist to guide the parliamentary committees when assessing sectoral compliance to the Budget Call Circular directive on gender budgeting.  The checklists specifying gender budgeting needs in each government sector will be developed annually and distributed by UWOPA and the Parliamentary Budget Office to parliament and government sectors during the budgeting  processes.

Some of the long term plans suggested include, FOWODE and UWOPA to strengthen their linkage to amplify the gender voice in Parliament. UWOPA to orient the new members of parliament and agree with the women’s organization on a women’s agenda for the next five years and continue organizing such meetings chaired by Hon. Kadaga to assess performance on the promotion of gender budgeting.

The Equal Opportunities Commission was requested through its Vice Chairperson Hon. Safia Nalule to produce periodical reports on the state of equal opportunities within the country as such information is crucial for advocacy. There was a call on Civil Society to strengthen its advocacy at the local government level where planning and budgeting starts. Members suggested conducting an annual gender audit within each sector to assess their compliance to gender budgeting. Another suggestion was to lobby for the inclusion of gender aspects on the checklist used when issuing the certificate of compliance.

In another meeting with the outgoing Chairperson of UWOPA, it was proposed that civil society should petition the Speaker of the 8th parliament demanding for the establishment of a Parliamentary Committee on infant and maternal health. This was during a discussion on how to prioritize infant and maternal health in Uganda.

6th April 2011
Carol Namagembe, FOWODE Communications Officer

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