30 CSOs undergo gender budget monitoring training

Thirty selected civil society organisations (CSOs) drawn from the Greater Accra and Volta regions have undergone a one-day gender budgeting monitoring training in Accra.

The one-day capacity building on gender budget monitoring, which was organised by FIDA-Ghana in collaboration with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), formed part of FIDA-Ghana’s ongoing efforts to promote gender equality and inclusive development in the country.

The Executive Director, FIDA Ghana, Susan Aryeetey, who opened the workshop, said capacity building in monitoring gender budgeting was a vital tool to ensure allocation and expenditure addressed the specific needs of survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the national budget. 

DV Fund

The Domestic Violence (DV) Fund was established to support victims of domestic violence by providing resources for shelters, medical care, legal assistance, and other forms of support.

The fund was mandated by the Domestic Violence Act of 2007 (Act 732) but faced delays in implementation and inadequate funding.

The participants at the end of the workshop were equipped with the skills, tools and knowledge needed to effectively track the budget allocation of funds to the DV fund.

The workshop was also to strengthen the capacity of the non-state actors on gender monitoring to track gender gaps, hold duty bearers accountable, and influence change, as well as enhance the knowledge of participants to monitor and analyse budget allocations from a gender perspective. 

Budget analysis                        

A Gender Consultant, Frank Wilson, who took the participants through ‘Budget Tracking and Analysis Training for Advocacy to Improve Budget Allocation to DV Fund’, explained to the participants what a budget was, the functions of a budget, the budget and the law and components of a budget.

He also took them through the Government of Ghana’s expenditure component, the various ways governments use budgets, as well as what performance and participatory budgets were.

Mr Wilson said as civil society, they played key roles in the budget process, adding that they could make inputs into the budget at the developing stages.

He also said they could carry out analysis on the budget to identify gaps, make recommendations and advocate reforms.

Also, he said, through the Public Expenditure Tracking System (PETS), the CSOs could track the flow of funds and determine the extent to which resources reached target groups.

Touching on budget analysis, Mr Wilson said it was the process of examining financial plans against actual financial performance to identify variances, assess financial health, and improve future budgeting.

He said in the public sector, the main objectives of the budget analysis were to control expenditures and predict future budget needs, thereby providing decision-makers with the information they needed to prepare the budget for the next period.

Writer’s email:rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh