UN Report Highlights India’s GRB Challenges

On 19th November 2024, at the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Women Empowerment, a UN report titled “Charting New Paths for Gender Equality and Empowerment: Asia-Pacific Regional Report on Beijing + 30 Review” highlighted that India’s Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) efforts face challenges in effectively addressing the needs of women and girls.

Key Points

Limited GRB Effectiveness: Exclusion of key programmes benefiting women and lack of sex-disaggregated data hinder the impact of GRB in India.
Recommendations:
- Address gaps in the Gender Budget Statement.
- Strengthen monitoring mechanisms for sectoral GRB efforts.
- Integrate GRB during budget prioritisation phases and encourage subnational governments to adopt GRB practices.
Global Context: The report acknowledged India’s 218% decadal increase in gender budgeting and compared its challenges to those faced by the Philippines, which also struggles with GRB implementation issues.
Regional Collaboration: The three-day conference in Bangkok, jointly organised by ESCAP and UN Women, reviewed progress since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted in 1995 to advance global gender equality.