JRCT Gender Budgeting Project: End of Project Conference
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
In June, we held a conference in partnership with our colleagues at Ulster University which highlighted the achievements of our joint JRCT Gender Budgeting project as it comes to an end this year. The conference, held at Ulster University, saw a number of attendees who have engaged with the project over the past seven years as well as new faces who were interested to learn about the project but also about gender budgeting in general.
The Minister for Finance opened the conference, emphasising the importance of exploring the application of gender budgeting tools especially in times of financial difficulty to ensure that equality remains a focus within government. According to international best practice, gender budgeting is most impactful when it is embedded in the central budget authority; to have this support from the Minister of Finance is key to the successful implementation of gender budgeting in Northern Ireland.
Following an overview of the project research from Professor Joan Ballantine and Dr. Michelle Rouse, which can be found on the ARK gender budgeting page, our keynote speaker, Scherie Nicol from the OECD, gave a speech on the benefits of strategic budgeting initiatives like gender budgeting. She highlighted the need for a strong foundation for a fiscal system and good governance, all of which strategic budgeting initiatives like gender budgeting can provide. This in turn will improve policy outcomes, benefiting all in society. Three questions that decision-makers need to ask themselves when developing a budget/policy will help create the foundation and governance needed for fairer outcomes:
Who benefits [from this budget/policy]?
Who is missing [from this budget/policy]?
What needs to change?
Our first panel discussion focused on gender budgeting in local and international governance, where we heard from the OECD, the Department of Finance, Derry City and Strabane District Council, and RaISe. This provided the panel, who have all engaged with the project in some way, as well as attendees, to hear about how gender budgeting could work in different areas of governance, how it would look different, as well as what the different challenges and opportunities are. On the second panel, representatives from NI Anti-Poverty Network, Women’s Resource and Development Agency, Stroke Association and NI Rural Women’s Network talked about becoming gender budgeting champions through the project’s training programme, conducting gender budgeting training themselves, and discussed the relevance of gender budgeting to their respective organisations despite the different areas they cover.
The conference ended with some final thoughts from members of the project as well as our funder, JRCT, who demonstrated the connection between the impact this project has had to its role in local, regional, national, and international networks working on gender budgeting and improved budget practices.
Over the course of the project, we’ve had motions pass in councils and the Assembly, we’ve trained a number of individuals who have become gender budgeting champions themselves, and we’ve seen an expansion of knowledge on gender budgeting in civil society and government. The work of the project team will continue through the NIWBG after the end of the project as the need and appetite for gender budgeting grows. By making our budgets more transparent, more accessible, and fairer through the application of gender budgeting, we could make Northern Ireland a better place.
