Men-Women: a regional budget which takes account of our differences

By adopting the ordinance of 29 March 2012 relating to the integration of the gender aspect in Brussels-Capital Region’s policies, the Government made equal opportunities between men and women one of its priorities. The Decree of 14 July 2016 establishing a method for integrating the gender aspect into the budgetary cycle is part of this policy.

Gender budgeting, a priority

Gender budgeting (FR/NL) is therefore part of the policy that takes an integrated approach to gender in all of Brussels’ policies. In other words, revenue and expenditure are planned in such a way as to make a maximum contribution to equality between men and women.

Gender budgeting is based on a categorisation of basic budgetary allocations (BA) in three categories:

• Category 1: BA which includes only appropriations relating to areas which do not include a gender aspect.
• Category 2: BA of appropriations relating to areas specifically aimed at promoting gender equality.
• Category 3: BA which includes only appropriations relating to areas which may include a gender aspect.

In a second stage, the BA of category 2 are included in a gender score. This gender score is used in the general description for each draft initial budget.

For category 3 BA a gender analysis must be made.
 

A decree and a pilot project

At the initiative of the Minister responsible for Finances and the Budget and the Brussels Secretary of State for equal opportunities, the Brussels-Capital Region has applied this method when developing regional budgets.

Two projects have been developed within this context:

• The Decree of the Government of the Brussels-Capital region of 14 July 2016 (FR/NL) introduced a method for integrating the gender aspect in the budget cycle
• A pilot project for categorising the basic allocations of three departments of the SPRB has been implemented.

 
The gender budgeting method is being gradually integrated into the SPRB and the Region’s agencies:

• 2017: categorisation of the SPRB’s BA
• 2018: categorisation of the agencies’ BA and gender analysis of the category 3 BA of the SPRB
• 2019: full integration of gender budgeting within our Region.

Each stage is preceded by a pilot project involving the main actors.

Once in place, the methods developed within this context at the SPRB will be rolled out to the public interest agencies.