Gender Budget in South Italy, an exploratory case study

Abstract

The 1990s saw the emergence of an international consensus on the promotion of Gender Equality with the
1995 World Social Summit on Development (WSSD), the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing
(FWCW), and the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). Signatory countries
decided to integrate the goals of these conferences into their policy plans through new resources and ensuring
transparency and accountability in their budget processes. More and more we assist at the introduction
of a Gender perspective into government budgets, in a way that government’s raising and spending
is organized to promote Gender Equality. In particular, Gender budget analysis is recognized to be an
important way to hold governments accountable for their commitments to human rights and Gender
Equality connect these commitments to the distribution, use, and generation of public resources. The aim
of this paper, after a short introduction to Gender Mainstreaming and some of key ideas and tools of
Gender budgeting, is to present the case of Gender Budget initiative in the Province of Lecce (South of Italy).