Gender Office to inspect government institutions

The Gender Monitoring Office (GMO) will soon embark on an exercise to examine the gender responsiveness of budgets within all ministries in the implementation process, Chief Gender Monitor, Oda Gasinzigwa, has announced.She made the remarks during an interactive session between GMO staff, Members of Parliament and a visiting delegation of seven Uganda legislators.“These ministries allocate or plan to put up many projects that will benefit women, girls or youth, but there is a possibility that they do not implement what they include in the budget, hence the reason to follow-up on these issues,” said Gasinzigwa.“What we shall get in the field will be evidence of what has been done and what was left out—and we shall use this in our report to Parliament”.Before approval of budgets for each sector or ministry, the GMO and Parliament, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, must consider if the budgets are gender sensitive.The Ugandan delegation led by Hon. Cecilia Atim, Barbara Ogwal, Dokolo District women representative, is on a working visit to share experiences and learn the best practices of budget allocation especially on gender issues.The delegation also comprises of members of the Standing Committee on Budget and Sessional Committee on Infrastructure. During the meeting, Gasinzigwa highlighted the measures set up to ensure the effectiveness of her office in promoting gender equality.“Previously, the gender budgeting process was only under the Ministry of Gender, which posed a challenge since the ministry had other responsibilities. It was later decided that GMO works directly with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to ensure that budgets from all government institutions are gender sensitive. The three institutions are now working together to uphold this principle, and Parliament is equally supportive because ministries have to prove that their budgetary allocations are engendered before approval,” she explained.She added that the GMO contributes to the preparation of the State Budget Draft Law in order to respect a gender sensitive budget by addressing existing gender inequalities in various sectors.Speaking to The New Times, Ogwal said that Uganda has a lot to learn from Rwanda in promoting gender.“In our country, we do not have the Gender Monitoring Office; therefore, it is important to note that we need to share and get the experience and challenging experiences,” she said.Ogwal noted that it will also help in coming up with harmonised measures to gender responsive budgeting in the two countries.

National

Gender Office to inspect government institutions