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The Analysis on Gender Responsive Budgeting System of Seoul Metropolitan Government
  • Date : 2021-12-27
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[Gender Mainstreaming]


The Analysis on Gender Responsive Budgeting System of Seoul Metropolitan Government


Lee Jae Kyung

Research Fellow, Seoul Foundation of Women & Family


Abstract

The gender responsive budgeting system aims to apply the perspective of gender equality in all processes, including budget planning, deliberation, execution, and evaluation. This system is one of the gender mainstreaming institutes to change the distribution structure and rules of the budget so that government resources can be used in an efficient and gender-equal manner.

The gender responsive budgeting system has been implemented in Seoul in 2013. The number of target projects and the budget scale have grown quantitatively (2013 fiscal year, 60 projects, KRW 272.2 billion 2021 fiscal year, 329 projects, KRW 3.6 trillion). However, the public officials in Seoul still have low awareness of and consensus on the system. In 2019, the Seoul Metropolitan Government prepared strategies for the effective operation of the system by establishing a procedure to reflect the opinions of the department in charge of the project when a targeted project is selected as well as by strengthening the part of education and consulting for the public officials. These efforts have been expanding the scale of gender responsive budgeting system, which was initially promoted around the improvement of gender budgeting.

This study aims to explore the impact of the structure changes in gender budgeting and the result of the gender settlement consultation on the gender settlement form and the quality of the contents. By assessing the status of the gender settlement form, the study will identify problems and suggest ways to improve the gender responsive budgeting system.

As a result of the analysis, the gender settlement form in fiscal year 2020 was improved compared with fiscal year 2019. However, it is confirmed that the accuracy of the written content and the reliability are somewhat disappointing. Among the content of the gender settlement of accounts, the “performance goal achievement status” item has a low degree of linkage with the gender budget statement. For continuous target projects, it is difficult to compare by year because the performance goals have been set differently. In some cases, the performance goals of the project are set regardless of gender equality. Accordingly, it is difficult to secure reliable data that can confirm that the government is budgeting for projects to prevent gender discrimination.

Problems are also identified in setting standards and preparing statistics for the project target group and the project beneficiary group. This makes it difficult to accumulate accurate information on government projects.

The self-evaluation of the gender responsive budgeting system should also include an evaluation of the achievement of performance goals and an analysis of the cause of the gender gap. Some self-assessments of gender settlement accounts are prepared in the same way every year, but they focus only on the gender gap analysis of the current year, not overall. Since there is no inspection implementation procedure, it is difficult to confirm whether the project is improving and whether it is necessary to change the budget allocation and distribution method accordingly.

In order to improve the gender responsive budgeting system performance, it is first necessary to establish a gender equality goal that penetrates the entire Seoul Metropolitan Government. Second, projects that are subject to intensive management should be selected and managed so that the content prepared is reliable. In addition, efforts such as strengthening the role of monitoring for consulting, preparing manuals about the gender settlement system performance, and expanding gender education are needed. When this is possible in the process, gender responsive budgeting system in Seoul, which operates segmentally, will be able to operate organically.


*Keywords: gender budgeting, gender settlement, gender equality, strengthening the connection among systems, gender quality goal, projects subject to intensive management