Women’s budget concerns for 2013/14 national budget

“The communities were grateful for having been involved in the budget discussions claiming that often times, budgeting and planning meetings are held mainly at the districts and they are highly dominated by the men”

 

The national budget plays a central role in the country’s economic and political functions. It is important that local priorities are identified through the local government budget process to inform the national budget priorities. To contribute to this process, Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) organized and mobilized grassroots communities to interface with their meetings policy makers in the districts of Amuru and Amuria to discuss women specific budget priorities for the financial year 2013/14.

Hon. Eriaku Peter the Member of Parliament for Kapelebyong County, Amuria district met with 157 people who among others included sub county female councilors, district technocrats and citizens from Kuju and Asamuk Sub counties. The MP shared with the communities some key budget proposals for the financial year 2013/14. He pointed out that budget allocation to the agricultural sector, is likely to drop from 3.5% in 2012/13 to 3.2% in 2013/2014 and this he mentioned was likely to further affect the small scale farmers majority of whom are women thus, leaving gaps including; limited access to credit, inadequate extension services, poor farming methods, and lack of women’s control over the factors of production that largely affect women. This was further evidenced in a comment by one Alejo Winnie who said, most people in Amuria depend on Agriculture but there is no market for their produce. Even transporting is a challenge looking at the poor roads. Let the roads be worked on to make the transportation of agricultural products easy. 

Apio Jane adding her voice to Winnie’s also recommended that; 

“Money should be allocated to value addition for example rice milling machines so that farmers do not incur expenses of transporting their produce to Soroti for value addition.”

He also informed the meeting that the health sector which majorly supports women compared to men is projected to receive an increment from 864.589 billion (2012/2013) to 944.202 billion (2013/2014). He noted that much as this budget is expected to increase it is important for the budget to focus on responding to the challenges of increasing access to the health centers, facilitation for health staff, availability of drugs and health structures for improved maternal health care. The community discussed and urged their MP to lobby for increased funds to the development of infrastructure mentioning the state of poor roads and long distances which gravely affect maternal health, specifically the women asked for procurement of beds in their health centers as most patients sleep on the floor with no beddings and in most health centers women and men share the maternity wards affecting their privacy. Additionally the women asked for government support to increase access to clean and safe water in their communities. One Imelda Asio asserted that; “Rural water is still a challenge though we are trying to meet the MDGs, let the government provide more boreholes to communities to relieve women from walking for long distances.

One Arioko Mariam raised a concern about the girl child dropout rate and recommended the provision of sanitary facilities in schools to aid in girl child retention in the schools. The need to increase teachers’ salaries was also highlighted as a major factor that government should emphasize given that most children drop out mainly because of teachers’ absenteeism.

 

Hon. Eriaku responding to the community concerns

 in regard to the budget

The communities were grateful for having been involved in the budget discussions claiming that often times budgeting and planning meetings are held mainly at the districts and they are highly dominated by the men, thus women have no space to influence the budget. Never, the less, after knowing that it is their right to participate in the budget process, most people agreed to attend the meetings once called upon starting with the next financial year.
 

Hon. Eriaku urged the citizens to participate in the budgeting process right from the village level and lobby their political leaders like Councilors to table their views for inclusion in the budget. He also informed the community of the ongoing advocacy for the Budget meant for Teso affairs to be separated from the national budget to help ease the implementation of the activities planned for in the region like the Soroti University.
 

In his closing remarks, the Area Member of Parliament committed himself to work together with other MPs in advocating for gender responsive budgets and share with them issues that were raised by the participants during the meeting.