Creating a pool of Gender Budgeting Experts
As part of her capacity development initiatives,
Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) with support from UNWOMEN Uganda
organized a Gender and Economic Policy (GEP) training for 20 Civil Society
Organisations representatives and Local government officials.
The
topics that were covered were, Gender and sexuality, Gender responsive
budgeting, unpaid care work, Feminist Economics, social justice among others.
The objective of the training was to create a pool of gender budgeting experts
that would in turn pass on the information to other stakeholders at the
grassroots levels.
It
came out strongly from the start that if
people of an economy are unhealthy, the economy will be affected and the
reverse is true. Therefore, using a gender lens in formulating government policies is
essential because of the various gender roles that they play in a community.
For
many participants, the term Feminist Economics was incomprehensible but at the
end of the session they realized that mainstream economics ignores the gendered dynamics of many economics
systems like labor markets and because the men are perceived as bread-winners,
this perception hinders women from bargaining for better wages. It came out
clearly that societies and institutions are gendered because gender value, norms, society & its institutions are intrinsically gendered.
Shifting
gender roles were discussed, it is now a common phenomenon for women to be the
breadwinners yet the labor economics do not pay attention to this and that women face unique reproductive challenges such as maternal health, which men do
not suffer, so when budgets are being made, policy makers should have that at
the back of their minds yet most times, the budgets that are made are gender
blind. But with the Gender and Equity
certificate that was integrated in the public finance bill, there is hope that
it will give the policy makers a gender lens when they are creating budgets.
As
the training was going on, there were live social media updates. This particular question stirred up an online
debate.
FOWODE @FOWODE_UGANDA #GEPTraining Q&A
Session on Gender: "Why do men hate women who are empowered?" a
participant asked
Grace Nakate @GNakate @FOWODE_UGANDA Some men
feel threatened by what they perceive strong women can attain or achieve
without them controlling it.
Grace Nakate @GNakate @FOWODE_UGANDA Risk
of generalizing, not all men hate empowered women. Just as not all empowered
women appreciate role of men. #GEPTraining
 |
| Susan Asio of Action for Development (ACFODE) making a presentation during the training |
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