The Gender Mainstreaming process in CASA reached a new height last week, when the leadership of the Organisation organized a 3 days workshop on Gender Budgeting for its key staff from all over the country during 27-29 July 2010, at the YMCA, New Delhi. To facilitate this workshop CASA couldn’t have any better combination of facilitators than the CBGA (Centre for Budget & Governance Accountability) - an expert on Budget analysis and the JAGORI – a prominent women’s organisation. This workshop was participated by approximately 40 staff of CASA drawn from various levels of the Organisation.

The Workshop started with a word of welcome by the Convenor of the Gender Task force of CASA, Mrs. Sheila Jones, OSD, Chennai. She also explained briefly the objective of the workshop. The Director of CASA, Dr. Sushant Agrawal, who had found time amidst his busy schedule to be a part of the Inaugural session.  He in his introductory speech explained the intent of the workshop and challenged the participants as well as the facilitators to make the most of this workshop in learning the nuances of Gender Budgeting, particularly for a large organisation like CASA.  He also emphasised on institutionalise Gender Budgeting through the Gender Mainstreaming process in CASA. Mr. Jayant Kumar, HoP, CASA who had organised this workshop on behalf of the Gender Taskforce, also encouraged the participants to learn the tools and skills of gender budgeting.

Later on the facilitators helped the participants to understand the concept of Budget by taking us through various components of Budgets. A detailed analysis of the Budget of Government of India and then on Gender Budgeting in different parts of the world as well as in India was discussed by various resource persons of CBGA and JAGORI.  It was made clear that Gender Budget, which is otherwise also known as Gender Responsive Budget  (GRB) is a relatively new concept across the world.  It was only in mid-1980s  some of the countries like Australia, Philippines, South Africa, UK and others started experimenting on GRB.  In India as recent as 2005 the Gender budgeting was introduced.  Currently approximately 60 countries have introduced GRB in their governments, including India.

The biggest challenge in GRB lies in the approach and mindset of the government officials who are primarily patriarchal in nature.  Therefore, a strong political will as well as the Gender sensitive approach of the government is the answer to the future of GRB.   The participants, towards the end of the workshop were asked to find out important issues, CASA is working on and to analyse our intervention in a gender lens.  The participants found that CASA is already gender sensitive in its approach to budgeting, however, more to be done with the new and scientific tools of a GRB.  It was decided that a series of follow up programmes on GRB trainings will be conducted for both the National as well as the Zonal level gender taskforce members of CASA. The workshop was also participated by the Chief Zonal officers of all the zones, which shows the seriousness of the intent of the organisation towards the Gender Mainstreaming in CASA.

-    Reported by Mr. Dinesh Suna, Policy Officer, CASA and a Participant of the workshop.