This presentation was made by Tanja BURCKARDT, Germany, at the Experts Meeting on Gender Budgeting held in Reykjaviik, Iceland, on 18-19 May 2017.

1. Federal Ministry of Finance
Berlin
OECD Experts Meeting on Gender Budgeting,
Reykjavik, Island, 18-19 May 2017
Dr.Tanja Burckardt
Head of Department
DG Budget
Federal Ministry of Finance,
Germany
Gender Budgeting in Germany –
The Federal Government‘s Perspective

2. Federal Ministry of Finance
Berlin
Approaches to gender budgeting differ
2
Overly
bureaucratic,
unused reports,
undermines line
ministry
ownership
Tie gender
information
as closely as
possible to the
budget
process
Approaches to gender budgeting differ on how and to what extend
gender information should be integrated in the budget.
Diversity!
There is no one size fits
all approach for
gender budgeting

3. Federal Ministry of Finance
Berlin
Promotion of gender equality
in the federal budget process
• Long tradition of a well functioning cash based budgeting system
• Important modernizations took place in recent years, e.g.
– new deficit rule (so called „debt brake“),
– introduction of top down budgeting and budget flexibility and
– establishing of regular spending reviews.
• High degree of autonomy of the line ministries
→Guiding principle to promote gender equality in any matters of
government (§ 2 Joint Rules of Procedure of the Federal Ministries)
→Every line ministry has to ensure gender mainstreaming in its policies,
corresponding with budget impacts from case to case
→From our perspective gender budgeting is a special application of
performance budgeting, concentrating on one policy goal.
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4. Federal Ministry of Finance
Berlin
Performance budgeting in Germany
4
Analysis and
reports by the
line ministries
Spending Reviews
lineministries´autonomy
linktobudgetprocess
Results reflected in budget proposal
Analysis and
reports by the
line ministries
Analysis and
reports by the
line ministries
Analysis and
reports by the
line ministries

5. Federal Ministry of Finance
Berlin
Gender performance assessment
within line ministries
• Line ministries conduct a lot of evaluations and reporting with special focus
on gender effects and by thus fulfilling the task adressed to them in the Joint
Rules of Procedure of the Federal Ministries
• Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, e.g.
annually report of women in executive positions in the private and public
sector, reporting on pay inequalities between women and men, gender
equality atlas
• Supplemented by more specific and narrow evaluations in the other policy
areas, e.g.
– the evaluation of the Hartz IV reforms: The evaluation conducted a
special focus on the impacts on women
– the annual Federal Government's report on pensions.
It contains detailed data on gender effects
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6. Federal Ministry of Finance
Berlin
Spending Reviews
6
Working group
involved line ministry, MoF
(common chair), guests
Assigns working groups & work
mission, sets rule of procedure,
monitors progress of work
Suggests specific budget
decisions based on the
reports of working groups
Calls SR-Topics,
puts steering committee in
place
Reports,
recommendations
Reflects results in budget
proposal to parliamentCabinet
Chancellor, Ministers
Steering Committee
Vice-Ministers of MoF
(Chair), Chancellery,
involved Line Ministries

7. Federal Ministry of Finance
Berlin
Spending reviews and gender analysis
• In the third year of application, spending reviews have proven to be
an effective, high-quality and pragmatic approach of performance
budgeting,
• the advantages are the room for ambitious analysis, the integration
and discussion of different – and sometimes conflicting – policy
goals,the involvement of the line ministries and the compatibility
with the budget process,
• thus spending reviews are the ideal framework also to conduct
analysis with regard to gender effects, taking budget measures with
significant respective effects in the focus of prospective reviews.
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8. Thank you!
Dr.Tanja Burckardt
Head of Department
DG Budget
Federal Ministry of Finance,Germany
tanja.burckardt@bmf.bund.de