How to Share Public Money Fairly | Maja Bosnic | TED

So I come from Bosnia.

I mean, I live in Sweden now,

but you don't need to know my whole life story.

But the story that I do want to share is from my home country.

So close to 50 percent of the land in Bosnia

is dedicated to agriculture and farming.

So the government decides to support farmers,

to set up a budget,

to set up the requirements for the people to receive the budget,

and then to disburse the funds.

So they do that, and towards the end of the process,

they decide to analyze who really received these funds.

And they did that,

and the Ministry of Agriculture was shocked,

because only one group of citizens received 90 percent of these funds.

And those were men, men working in agriculture.

So where were the women?

Why didn't they have access to the funds?

The Minister of Agriculture was surprised, because they didn't mean to discriminate.

They knew there were women working in agriculture, right?

So they went back and analyzed the situation.

And the problem was -- well, there were three things.

The first thing is they didn't even know the gender of farmers,

because they'd never done gender analysis before.

So actually, they did know the sex disaggregation of cows,

but not of people.

(Laughter)

I will let that sink a bit --

because gender is unimportant.

The second issue is that the way they were distributing the funds

could not possibly reach women.

Why? Because one of the conditions to get this subsidy

was to give out a land ownership certificate,

and we know that traditionally, women do not own land.

And the second problem was that women didn't even know.

Why? Because the information was shared at forums that they do not participate in.

But the story has a happy end, because when the ministry realized this,

they changed these provisions.

And with the help of gender experts from Bosnia,

we now see more and more women getting funds every year.

So what is the point of this story?

The point is not only that we should have sex-disaggregated data on people,

not only cows.

(Laughter)

But it's also that we can budget fair and equitably,

but we can't just run numbers blindly.

We need to know the faces of the people that we are serving with public funds.

So this is really the heart of gender-responsive budgeting,

or as I like to think of it, and maybe you, too,

common-sense budgeting.

(Laughter)

So, I'm an economist,

I work with public finance, so public finance and budgets,

but my specialty is helping governments inject a gender perspective

in their financial decisions and budgets.

OK, so budgets are fairly simple, straightforward,

as it was introduced,

and now, you are thinking,

"Well, that does not look fairly straightforward."

And it's intentionally done like that,

because this is how we often imagine the budget to be: so complex,

so technocratic, bureaucratic we don't even want to engage.

But the reality is very different than that.

In fact, all our budgets,

be it your own budgets or public budgets, or company budgets,

go through the four logical steps.

The first step is, of course, we are calculating our revenues.

In the sense of the state, it would be taxes and fees, right?

The second step is budget approval.

After we figure out what we will do with the funds,

it goes to the approval of the parliament.

And then, the third step, my personal favorite,

is spending, or budget execution.

Ideally, according to priorities -- not my personal favorite.

And then, we go into control and budget oversight.

So whether we have actually spent the money as we planned,

and also, whether we have achieved the objectives.

So in the sense of the state,

it would be an increased level of education,

decreased level of poverty.

In the sense of the companies, it would be profit or income.

You see where I'm going.

So what is really wrong with that?

It sounds perfectly logical.

Well, what is wrong with that

is that traditionally, in most countries, if not all around the world,

we assume, when we are planning the budget funds,

that we are targeting one universal, homogenous human

that will have the same access to funds, the same needs, almost.

And then, a situation such as this one in the Ministry of Agriculture happens;

then, we are surprised that our funds didn't really reach everybody.

So, what I want to also say here, what do we then do about that?

In Ukraine, the government has analyzed close to 300 budget programs.

And when I say “budget programs,”

these are expenditures in health, education, sports,

infrastructure, defense --

anything you can think of that is funded with public funds.

And in every single one of these programs, we have found gender gaps.

We have found big gender gaps.

And these gender gaps were usually on account of women --

they didn't have access.

And why did this happen?

It happened because finance officers were just doing their jobs,

and they were doing it really well.

They were planning for economic effectiveness, efficiency,

value for money ...

We really love value for money.

Performance budgeting, medium-term --

all of these very valid economic objectives,

very valid goals,

but we really didn't account for the needs of the people

that we are serving with these funds.

And let me illustrate that.

So we have analyzed the program for tuberculosis.

So, treatment of patients with tuberculosis.

And you may be now asking,

"OK, but you know, you need to treat the patient.

Why is gender important here?"

But when we have done the analysis,

we have actually seen that 70 percent

of the patients with tuberculosis were men.

And tuberculosis is a big issue in Ukraine.

And these were men living in remote areas, in rural areas, working in mines.

However, the preventive measures and the way they were designed,

they didn't account for it.

They were actually targeting those sectors,

such as education and health,

where women traditionally dominate.

And this is fine,

but they really didn’t account for the needs of the men in these groups.

And why?

Because gender equality was not important in the budget decision.

So what I'm trying to illustrate here

is not only that we need to account for gender equality

to achieve our objectives of equality,

but we also need to account for it to make more common-sense budgetary decisions,

more effective and efficient budgets.

So how do we do that?

It looks equally entertaining,

but now, we also add gender,

so it's a total mess, and we would think, "How do we even go about that?"

But of course, it's not as complex as that,

because in the heart of this work is gender analysis.

And what do I mean by that?

So when we are planning, as finance officers,

any financial or fiscal decision,

meaning when we are planning introducing a new tax, for example,

the core is to analyze how will that influence

different groups in a society?

So will we have our gender gaps increased --

we don’t want to do that --

reduced or leave the status quo?

So, of course, we want to reduce them,

and I just want to put it here as well,

in most countries -- not all, unfortunately,

but in a lot of countries around the world,

we have a very solid legislative framework for gender equality.

We have commitments.

But when it comes to budget and finance,

that's where, suddenly, the story evaporates.

So when it comes to money,

it's not really analyzed for gender impact.

So this is really important,

and we do this in, as I said, three steps.

I will take you very fast through these steps, don't worry.

So the first step is really to do a situation analysis.

So in our agriculture example,

if we had done a situation analysis,

and if we had known the gender gaps in this sector,

we wouldn't have been surprised.

We would have known that women do not own land,

so we wouldn't give this as a requirement,

and we would definitely have known that we need to inform them

in a different way.

So this is the first step.

The second step is related to my example with sex disaggregation,

you will remember from the beginning.

So we really need to know the beneficiaries

that we are trying to serve.

And now you are thinking, "This sounds very obvious,"

but it's not done.

And the third step, of course, is to know the procedures.

How will we give this budget out, who will have access?

What will be the excluded groups?

And that's it.

And now, I will just share some good news, I think.

It's that around 80 countries around the world

are working with gender budgeting.

And please, if you have an interest,

just see if your own country is one of them.

But when I say they are working with gender budgeting,

that does not mean that their whole budget is gender-responsive.

That would be my dream.

But my personal hero is Austria. Why?

Because they have gender budgeting entrenched in the constitution.

So that means that in Austria,

it cannot happen that you have an investment project

that you are doing without considering gender

and gender equality.

Canada -- feminist government, gender-balanced cabinet --

and they are doing gender budgeting,

but they are taking into account the needs of Indigenous groups of people.

So this is also something that we want to do

and we have to do.

Let me take you to Morocco.

Morocco is working with gender budgeting for 20 years.

Indonesia, with the help of the World Bank,

has just analyzed their whole budget system

to make it more gender-responsive.

And I need to take you again to Bosnia,

because I did start with that example.

Balkan countries are doing fantastic work, with the help of UN Women.

So there is a lot of work happening,

and I am now coming to an end,

because you might now be wondering,

"OK, but what is in it for me?" in a sense.

"You are talking about public budgets,

but I work in a company or NGO, or I'm self-employed," doesn't matter.

So what is it? Why is it important for us?

Because this is our money.

These are our budgets.

We are filling these budgets --

it's not some abstract money out there,

so we have the right to demand it to be equitable, to be fair.

That's one thing.

So it is important for countries, it's important for companies.

Of course, we should ask who is making decisions,

whose needs are being satisfied.

And also, maybe, families.

But who really has the voice, who is making decisions?

It's interesting just to see, and then, to maybe be surprised,

that these ministries are not.

So if you are interested, you are literally one click away --

and I'm aware this sounds like a sales pitch,

but I am selling you the work of many, many gender-budgeting experts

around the world,

who have been, for years, working with these concepts.

So you have such a wealth of material

from UN Women, IMF, different scholars,

World Bank, Swedish government ...

doesn’t matter, I will not go into all the wealth of materials.

So it's all out there.

And if we do that, we will have the budgets

that will not only lead to gender equality,

which is an amazing objective in itself,

but we will have better, more effective, more efficient, more fair budgets.

What's not to like?

So I hope next time we meet, maybe here again,

this type of gender-responsive budgeting will be called "budgeting."

Thank you.

(Applause and cheers)