Planning challenges in gender budgeting: A case study of the Watsan Sector in Mpigi District, Uganda

Abstract

This study investigated factors, which affect the application of gender budgeting by planners in the WATSAN Sector in Mpigi district, Uganda. The problem was that many activities budgeting inclusive do ignore gender issues and concerns. The problem’s significance was that when gender issues are not addressed in activities, there is an imbalance in allocation resources. An assessment of the extent to which planners apply gender awareness and skills in budgeting for WATSAN sector including training attended was carried out. Planners’ practices and challenges faced in gender budgeting were studied. The overall objective of the study was to establish the challenges faced by planners in gender budgeting for the WATSAN Sector in Mpigi district. Specifically, the study tried to identify planners’ levels of awareness of gender; to ascertain planners’ attendance of training in gender budgeting and; To find out whether sub county and district planners adhere to gender policy guidelines while budgeting for gender in WATSAN Sector. Literature covered was gathered from primary and secondary sources of information which included books, journals and websites. The study applied a qualitative research design. The qualitative and quantitative methods were used to manage and analyse data. The key findings of the study were: The sub county and district planners encountered technical, administrative and political constraints in gender budgeting for the WATSAN sector included. The level of understanding of gender was low among sub county planners, but district planners had satisfactory understanding of gender. The attendance of training in gender budgeting was low at sub county level but satisfactory at district level. However, a large number of planners at both sub county and district levels had not attended any training in gender budgeting of whom the majority were non-technical planners. Therefore, there was inequality regarding training opportunities among planners. The differences between Sub-county and district planners’ levels of awareness of gender existed. This implied that the two days training on mainstreaming gender into planning attended by mainly district planners, had some impact. Therefore, capacity building through training improves levels of gender awareness. The use of guidelines and the application of steps in gender budgeting were unsatisfactory between both sub county and district planners. This meant either it was due to planners’ negligence or lack of access to the guidelines in the WATSAN sector. The few planners who did use guidelines identified them as the Poverty Eradication Action Plan and the Local Government Programme II Assessment Manual. There was sex stereotyping by planners when budgeting for men/boys and women/girls in the WATSAN sector. That is, male planners tended to have positive attitudes whereas female planners tended to have negative attitudes towards the inclusion of men/boys and women/girls issues when budgeting. Therefore, sex stereotyping did affect gender budgeting in the WATSAN sector. The study major recommendations were: Capacity building through training and partnerships is an important strategy in improving levels of awareness and skills in gender among the planners. Equal training opportunities should be given to both female and male planners, technocrats and non-technical planners so that implementers and policy makers gender awareness is harmonized. The government of Uganda should provide planners with gender budgeting guidelines. The district should encourage the planners to use recommended guidelines in gender budgeting. Mpigi district should address the technical, administrative and political constraints that planners face in order to improve their performance on gender budgeting. The government of Uganda’s commitments towards gender budgeting should be enhanced by indicating in its gender budgeting guidelines allocation of funds toward gender programme activities.