Gender inequality in Russia: the perspective of participatory gender budgeting

Abstract

Gender-based discrimination is found in all economies in the world. Women’s unpaid work accounts for about half of the world GDP, yet women remain under-valued and under-represented in national policies worldwide. The question of gender budgeting and citizens’ participation in budgeting and governance processes has gained attention in recent years, but Russia is far from implementing these. Instead, blindness to gender issues dominates in national strategies and budgets. This paper explores these issues and looks in-depth at them in the decentralisation process in Bashkortostan, a central Russian republic. Civil society institutions whose role is to strengthen the links between government, civil society and the community in Bashkortostan, such as Public Chambers and Municipalities, lack the capacity to introduce participatory gender budgeting. As a result, no systematic participatory planning, let alone planning that is gender-sensitive, has taken place there.

Résumé

La discrimination sexiste existe dans toutes les économies du monde. Le travail féminin non rémunéré représente près de la moitié du PIB, pourtant les femmes demeurent sous-évaluées et sous-représentées dans les politiques nationales de par le monde. Ces dernières années, la question de la budgétisation sexospécifique et de la participation des citoyens aux procédures de gouvernance et de préparation des budgets a attiré l’attention, mais la Fédération de Russie est loin d’appliquer ces principes. Au contraire, le refus de voir les problèmes de genre domine dans les stratégies nationales et les budgets. Cet article étudie ces questions et les examine en profondeur dans le processus de décentralisation au Bashkortostan, une république de Russie centrale. Les institutions de la société civile dont le rôle est de renforcer les liens entre les autorités, la société civile et la communauté au Bashkortostan, comme les Chambres publiques et les Municipalités, n’ont pas la capacité d’introduire une budgétisation sexospécifique participative. Par conséquent, aucune planification participative systématique, sans parler de planification sensible au genre, n’a été mise en łuvre là-bas.

Resumen

La discriminación basada en género se encuentra en todas las economías del mundo. El trabajo no remunerado de las mujeres constituye aproximadamente la mitad del PIB del mundo; sin embargo, las mujeres continúan siendo subvaloradas y subrepresentadas en políticas nacionales a nivel mundial. El tema de presupuestación con perspectiva de género y participación de la ciudadanía en los procesos de presupuestación y gobernanza ha ganado atención en los últimos años, pero a Rusia le falta mucho por implementarlos. En cambio, en las estrategias y presupuestos nacionales se hace caso omiso de los asuntos de género. En este artículo se exploran estos asuntos, los cuales se examinan a fondo en el proceso de descentralización en la República de Bashkortostán, en Rusia central. Las instituciones de la sociedad civil, cuya función es fortalecer los vínculos entre el gobierno, la sociedad civil y la comunidad en Bashkortostán, tales como Cámaras Públicas y Municipalidades, carecen de la capacidad para introducir la presupuestación participativa con perspectiva de género. Por consiguiente, no se ha llevado a cabo ninguna planificación participativa sistemática, y mucho menos planificación sensible al género.

Keywords:

• gender budgeting
• governance
• civil society
• citizen participation
• Russia

Gender-based discrimination is found in all countries and all economies in the world. No country has managed to eliminate the gender gap, and in every country, women find it more difficult than men to participate equally in economic and political life. Russia has ratified all the international legally binding and non-binding documents regarding gender equality and human rights, including the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Millennium Development Goals. In spite of these commitments, however, the Russian Government has carried out no systematic work on equal access of women to a place in political institutions. As a result, gender gaps persist in all spheres of people’s lives and are seen in many area of socio-political life, from women’s lack of political representation to the experience of unprecedentedly high rates of domestic violence.

At the same time, gender discrimination leads to significant losses in potential economic output. Were the gender gaps in the labour market to be reduced and equal access to resources in agriculture production achieved, food production could be raised by 30%,^1,2 and the income of women could be increased, contributing to national income.

Globally, women’s unpaid work accounts for about 50% of the world’s GDP.³ Yet women remain under-valued and under-represented in national policies and political participation. In Russia, researchers calculate the loss to the annual budget due to gender segregation to be roughly 40–50%.⁴

There is growing understanding that international treaties and constitutional provisions are insufficient to achieve gender equality. As one way to move forward in this regard, gender-responsive budgeting and participatory approaches may contribute to reducing gender inequality. First applied in the 1980s in Australia, this is increasingly being adopted in planning in many parts of the world. Gender-responsive budgeting does not mean having a separate budget for women, as it is very often wrongly understood; it is an approach where a gender perspective is incorporated into all levels of the budgetary process.⁵

A participatory approach is acknowledged to be a cost-effective tool to apply in gender budgeting, so that the community’s needs, including both women’s and men’s needs, are identified and acknowledged and taken account of. The value of citizen participation in local governance has gained increased attention in recent decentralization processes for delivering on government responsibilities at the local level. The two concepts differ in that gender-responsive budgeting specifically seeks to mainstream a gender perspective into planning and budget- making, while participatory approaches focus on bringing in the community’s voices – while not necessarily emphasising equitable participation of men and women. The potential of using both is to increase efficiency, transparency and accountability in local governance. But the lack of government commitment, along with lack of knowledge and capacity, creates complex challenges. Nevertheless, the decentralization process, which is actually in progress in Russia, as well as the emergence of civil society institutions such as Public Chamber and Municipalities, has created incentives for introducing gender-responsive budgeting in local planning.

Gender inequality in Russia

In the post-Soviet countries, women’s status has continued to decline. Gender issues in most national and state documents tend to be stated in highly general terms, and there are no gender-specific lines in the budgets. In 2012, only three of 19 ministers and only 11 percent of deputies were women⁶. In the private sector, women comprised only 3% of personnel at the decision-making level, and only 8% of executives on corporate boards.⁷ In 2013, Russia held the 96th place below Turkmenistan (83), Gabon (87) and Somalia (95) in the world classification of the share of women in national parliaments.⁸ Income disparity still remains wide. In 2011, the same as in 2006, a woman earned 30–33% less salary than a man doing an equivalent job.⁹

According to the World Economic Forum report on global gender gaps, which examines the gap between men and women in four key categories – economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment – Russia ranked 59th among 135 countries, below Kazakhstan (31), Malawi (36), Mongolia (44), and the Kyrgyz Republic (54). Russia had slipped down to this position due to declines in women’s economic participation (39) and political empowerment (90).¹⁰

So, why are the gender gaps still so wide? One major reason is that the stereotype that women’s place is in the home and “where the man is the main breadwinner, while the woman combines the tasks of earning money for the family with household duties and raising children”¹¹ has got a new boost in post-Soviet times and is strongly supported by the state leadership.¹², ^* As a UNDP report says, there is “a shift away from the aim, declared in the 1990s… of establishing a society based on gender equality”.¹³ This backward shift is accompanied by a gender perspective in which:

“…all the problems of women as a social group can be summarized as problems of women with young children.”¹³

The feminist movement remains weak and unpopular in Russia, which partially explains the widening of gender gaps. The political party “Women of Russia” received 8% of the vote in the 1993 State Duma elections, but by the end of that decade had lost its support, and since then has never regained its seats. Low representation of women is conditioned by a double glass ceiling, as one expert argues: “One is external but the other is low self-esteem…only 40% of Russian women in management positions want to be CEOs.”¹⁴ While the vast majority of Russian women work outside the home, their situation in the workplace has worsened since market reforms. It now takes a lot more for a woman to get into a male-dominated business area. The owners are unwilling to hire women, let alone to promote them to a high position. Women with small children, single mothers, single women with ageing parents, and middle-aged professionals are especially vulnerable to being displaced from their jobs.

In a society without any coherent mechanism for protecting family members who need protection, domestic violence against women, children, and other weaker family members remains at an incredibly high level in Russia. It is estimated that 14,000–15,000 women are killed annually, while about 26,000 children are victims of parental abuse and about 2,000 children commit suicide.^15–17 The situation is further complicated by the fact that law enforcement officers and people themselves perceive domestic violence as a private conflict between spouses but not as a crime against the person.

The typical manifestation of discrimination against women is poverty. According to official statistics (Federal State Statistics Service), there are more women than men living in poverty among those aged 30 years and older.¹⁸ Ovcharova argues that in Russia: “…social programmes do not make any tangible contribution to reducing poverty… The most unfortunate categories are families with three or more children and single-parent families with children”.¹⁹ Moreover, benefits and cash transfers fail to reduce poverty levels. In 2006, the government took action on a combination of social protection priorities in favour of families with children. But still, the impact of child benefits on family welfare was rather small, and the benefits received have helped little to move families out of chronic poverty.²⁰ The financial crises of 2009–2010 worsened the situation and raised the poverty line to 16% of the population compared to the previous decade when the poverty line was at 10%.²¹

Russian men are also vulnerable due to gender inequality. The most sensitive male issue is low life expectancy. Russia still has the widest gender gap in life expectancy at birth (12 years) of any country in the world.²² In 2013, the average life expectancy for women was 75 while for Russian men it was only 63.²³ Under present conditions, only 54% of 16-year-old boys today will survive to the age of 60.²⁴ Men are victims of their own masculinity images, which require them to be the head of the family and a breadwinner, performing successfully in business. Serving in the army is mandatory for Russian men. In both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, the country was involved in several military campaigns – in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya – where thousands of men have lost their lives. Heavy drinking and smoking also contribute to low life expectancy for men.²⁵

Men are also victims of domestic violence.^* Though the majority of victims of domestic violence are women, certain studies show that the number of male victims varies from 4% to 40%.^26,27 But due to the lack of research, little is known and it is not on the agenda of public discussion.

Russia is a multicultural country with 83 federal regions or states, stretched out over the vast territory from Europe to Asia. The complex reality of its political and socio-economic processes is vividly seen at the regional level. The Republic of Bashkortostan, for example, with 4.2 million population, is located in the South Urals, in Russia’s central region, with a well-developed oil–gas industrial infrastructure. In that region, gender inequality mirrors or is even deeper than at the national level: low political representation on the part of women, widespread domestic violence, labour market discrimination, and unemployment differentials (64% are women).²⁸ In the Kurultay, the regional parliament, in 2008, among 120 members of parliament just six were women.²⁹ There is not even one woman at the executive level of any government body. But going down the ladder of government structure, the lower the salary, the more women there are.

Gender policies: civil society perspectives

In Russia today, as previously in the USSR, all existing social problems are referred to as women’s matters and treated as requiring “care for vulnerable populations” such as people living in poverty, people with disabilities, the elderly and children – in other words, the majority of the population. Those in charge of institutions providing this “care”, e.g. schools, hospitals, kindergartens and social services, are predominantly women. This domain of budgetary expenditure is traditionally perceived to be of lesser importance and is therefore financed on the residual principle (that is, what is left over after “important” expenditure). One of the reasons why this is allowed to happen is the lack of a critical mass of women in the “important” decision-making structures, which limits women’s ability to protect and promote their own interests. The drop in the proportion of women members of the State Duma from 35% in 1991 to 6% in 2012³⁰ also makes it more difficult for women’s voices to be heard.

In the USSR days, the so-called “social motherhood” issues – family issues, issues of children, and problems of pensioners – were also considered to be women’s issues, but women’s participation in politics was provided through official quotas at the level of 30%. At the same time, however, the highest body of political power, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was composed largely of men. In spite of that, women’s political representation in other institutions in Soviet times made it possible to have better access to education, employment, promotion, and participation in social, cultural, and political activity in support of vulnerable populations, including women.

In post-Soviet Russia, lack of representation of women at the decision-making level led to the low prioritization of “women’s problems”. The Department for Medical and Social Problems of the Family in the Ministry of Health and Social Development, which was responsible for implementation of gender-oriented policy, was abolished. Nowadays, the Department of Social Welfare is the only body in the Ministry that has a mandate to deal with women’s issues and gender issues, and “implementation of that mandate is largely optional”.³¹ A draft law entitled “On state guarantees of equal rights and freedoms of men and women and equal opportunities for their realization” was introduced by a group of Deputies of the third State Duma in 2003, and a National Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women in Russia was developed in 2005, but since then, these initiatives have not undergone any further development.³¹

The Russian national budget is currently regulated first, by Constitutional law (Chapter 8, Article 132³²) where the principles of budget distribution are articulated, and second, by budget coding, in which classification of budget spending includes education, health care and social policy.³³ These areas for spending, traditionally, especially social policy, were assumed by the government to be gender-sensitive. Social policy includes budget lines such as protection of family and children, social provision for expenses of pregnancy and childbirth, welfare payments for children of single mothers, and welfare payments for those living in poverty (incomes below the minimum standard of living), pensions. But as Rzhanitsina L.S. argues, apart from the benefits related to pregnancy and childbirth, and welfare for children, it is almost impossible to “identify how much was spent on the working population, pensioners, children, youth, men and women, and people with high and low incomes. All of them are covered using different budget sources: salary/wage payments, pensions, welfare payments, and allocations for services”.³⁴

In addition, gender segregation at executive level has its own discriminatory impact on budget expenditures. The major expenditures are allocated to institutions and industries dominated by men, e.g. in foreign affairs, army, defence, space, nuclear energy, and mining, giving social expenditures less priority. In 2004, the Russian Ministry of Finance attempted to introduce performance-oriented budgeting in order to replace the inherited Soviet input-based system, developed for state defense strategy and military planning, but it has not subsequently been revised to reflect current reality. Therefore, as V. Zatsepin argues “no positive Russian examples of using performance measures in the budgeting process exist”.³⁵ Increased efficiency in budgetary performance is based upon prioritization and better expenditure allocation and could also become an entry point for inclusion of gender indicators. However, due to the lack of supportive mechanisms, little progress even in the implementation of performance-oriented budgeting has been made in the Russian planning process.

Post-Soviet Russia is in the process of transformation from Soviet-type centralized, top-down planning to a decentralized economy. In the light of decentralization, two institutions meant to represent public interests in legislative and planning processes, Public Chambers and Municipalities, emerged at the beginning of 2000. The mission of Public Chambers in the 83 regions is to strengthen cooperation between civil society and government. Its priority tasks are consultative bodies to conduct expert analyses of government programmes, legislation and actions at national and regional levels. In other words, Public Chambers are supported by the authorities and are intermediaries for systematic consultation between civil society and governments. The mission of Municipalities, which is the governing body for 23,000 cities, is working in cooperation with the municipalities to address their needs. Through implementation mechanisms, such as participation and representation, and performance-oriented budgeting, both are supposed to better address the needs of these urban communities. With no experience at this level in participatory or performance-based budget management, however, the decentralization process faces numerous challenges, from lack of knowledge to regional conservatism to being given low priority. Decentralization, in fact, instead of leading to independence, has left most municipalities bound by limited resources and little autonomy in decision-making.

Public Chambers has a low level of representation of women;⁶ it is also weak³⁶ and has limited capacity for performing its tasks. It has failed to promote closer collaboration between government and civil society, in spite of that being its main mission. Lack of gender sensitivity led it to neglect problems such as the failure in 2012 to table a motion for Parliamentary debate of allowing restraining orders to be served on violent men, to address the appalling record of domestic violence¹⁵ that is killing thousands of women^16,37 and leaving thousands of children¹⁵ without state support. That same year, regional deputies in Bashkortostan initiated a bill on prevention of domestic violence but in the end the deputies decided not to take it forward. The decision was based on the view that these crimes are covered by criminal legislation, so there was therefore no need for a separate law.³⁸ This is an example of limited gender awareness and expertise. The decline in incidents of domestic violence in the USA, Canada and Western Europe is mainly due to the enactment of specific laws on the prevention and prohibition of domestic violence.²⁶

Moreover, in all of Russia, there are only 20 shelters for women suffering abuse, that is, one for every 7 million people. In comparison, in the UK, there are about 400 shelters, one for every 150,000 people.³⁹ With legal impunity for perpetrators, with no support system for victims of domestic violence, beatings in Russian families became a ritual. In Kyrgyzstan, in contrast, the authorities acknowledged the UN Development Programme’s recommendations and in 2003 adopted gender equality laws in which work against any form of gender-based violence was given priority.⁴⁰

In Bashkortostan, the responsibilities of the State Duma Committee on Women, Children and Families, which had existed for a long period of time, up until the last parliamentary election, were dispersed among the Committees on Education, Science, Culture, Sport and Youth, and the Committee on Social Policy and Public Health. There is a Commission on Gender Policy within the regional branch of the Federation of Trades Unions, which unites workers from the enterprises where trades unions are present. But in modern Russia, as opposed to Soviet times, only a small number of workers are members of trades unions, mainly due to the fact that the unions lost their independence and power to protect the interests of workers. In this regard, the Commission has little ability to influence decision-making processes or provide gender mainstreaming at policy level.

The regional statistics indicate that there is a civil society of 4,398 NGOs, including women’s NGOs, in Bashkortostan.⁴¹ But in reality, only three NGOs, the Union of Women, the Society of Bashik Women and the Association of Women Entrepreneurs are active, have their own websites and are known to the public, largely due to government support. But even so, these NGOs’ major activities are limited to actions such as festivals or charitable activities to raise funds for poor families and disadvantaged populations, but do not include exercising influence on policy from a gender-mainstreaming perspective.

In the Bashkortostan republic, a gender needs assessment has never been done, and as a consequence, neither sex-disaggregated data, nor gender-sensitive policies, nor incentives for initiating a regional mechanism on gender mainstreaming as part of regional planning exists there. Local civil society has a lack of capacity, and their dependence on donor and government support limits their ability to participate in planning and programming processes. Lack of skills and knowledge of participatory and gender-responsive budgeting approaches is an additional barrier for reducing gender inequality.

Gender-sensitive, participatory budgeting in Russia: challenges and opportunities

In recent years, the participatory approach and gender-responsive budgeting have been increasingly used as an effective tool to hold governments accountable for gender equality and social development. Participatory approaches acknowledge the need for dialogue between different stakeholders and groups of people with different interests as a tool for finding common ground and therefore opening doors for women’s voices and subsequently for gender budgeting. Gender budgeting, as stated earlier, is an approach where gender-based budget analysis can reveal the efficiency of budget policy in terms of its impact on the lives of both men and women. It is important to consider women’s needs separately because women have different needs than men and often know family and community needs better than men. When they are involved in the decision-making process, it helps the identification of problems, finding cost-effective solutions, and bringing about social justice.

To date, over 70 countries worldwide, including some in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), have engaged in or supported gender budgeting initiatives, alongside securing budget allocations targeted specifically at gender inequality.⁴² In Russia, pilot gender budgeting initiatives took place with the support of international donors in St Petersburg and Komi Republic in 2004. One of the results was the Gender Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, which contained a plan of action for achieving gender equality as a part of the national machinery on improving the status of women. In the Komi Republic, development of a methodology for gender budgeting, which was supported by the Open Society Institute, was not followed by its incorporation into the decision-making process.⁴³ In St Petersburg, research on the city budget showed that it was “not oriented practically to taking up gender issues”.⁴⁴ Unfortunately, subsequent administrative reform actually nullified these initiatives.

Many in local government in Russia are hesitant to or afraid of encouraging citizen participation, as they believe it will lead to demand for more services and place additional burdens on already scarce resources. In post-Soviet Russia delivery of services by the municipalities and other government agencies still does not take account of people’s opinions or include consultations with civil society organizations. The top-down approach continues to dominate and create dependency, and therefore keeps people vulnerable. On the other hand, the experience of several participatory initiatives worldwide has helped to show that a participatory approach is a cost-effective way of addressing community needs. At the same time, however, it also showed that the possibilities for civil participation in Russia are still regulated very poorly in the law, and that government bodies at all levels are not obliged to organise different forms of public participation at any stage of the budgeting process.⁴⁵ Thus, in Russia national development strategies and budgets are still not gender-sensitive.

Small towns and villages across the vast Russian territory have limited resources, limited access to health care, schools, day care centres for small children, hospitals or maternity clinics, let alone good roads or well-developed public transport. Most of the victims of such deprivation are women, children and the elderly population, and big rural families, most of whom live in extremely poor conditions. By some estimates, more than two-thirds of rural households live at or below the official poverty level.⁴⁶

In spite of rapid depopulation, where economic deprivation is a major reason for the decreasing number of births, the monthly child benefit remains extremely low, at about USD 4, and cannot compensate for the absence of the mother’s wage in the family budget.⁴⁷ This issue has been discussed for years in Russia, but no progress has yet been seen. In the 1990s, hundreds of day care centres were closed down, making it impossible for almost 2 million children to be looked after in these facilities,⁴⁸ often forcing their mothers to stop working. This problem continues up to today – about 500,000 Russian children, still do not have access to day care services.⁴⁹ In France, in contrast, where gender issues are an important political concern, day care with local government financial subsidy is affordable for 100% of parents.⁴⁸

To overcome poor legislation, lack of studies on gender needs and gaps, lack of sex-disaggregated data to base policy on, low capacity for decentralized governance, and limited resources for the maintenance of infrastructure and facilities, from education to health care, what is urgently needed is a decentralization process that includes training for local government leaders and staff. This is thought by analysts to require a number of years for capacity building.⁵⁰ Given the scarcity of political will, however, lack of data contributes a further barrier for introducing gender-responsive budgeting initiatives.

At the same time, there are some incentives that could support gender-responsive budgeting. Municipal budgets include budget lines intended to address the needs of communities. For example, the 2012 expenditure budget of Ufa City, the capital of Bashkortostan Republic, included lines that supported foster families, people with disabilities, the elderly population, and even a socio-rehabilitation center for alcoholics.⁵¹ These expenditures were determined based on budget lines from previous years, even though a participatory approach was not used.

Experts from local and regional governments and academia in Ufa City^* advised in informal interviews in 2013 that in spite of resource restrictions and administrative limitations, there are some opportunities for gender-based redistribution and allocation of funds and resources in the needed budget lines. For that, civil society should have a strong voice to lobby for and to address community needs in budget allocation processes. Another entry point for gender-responsive budgeting could be budget requirements for short- and long-term forecasting,⁵² where gender-sensitive planning could be introduced in the form of target-oriented programmes or municipal programmes aiming at covering specific needs of the communities. For example, municipal expert L.Bagautdinova gave the example that due to the rise in the number of children in one district of Ufa City, a district programme for building a school had been developed and was lobbied for by the Municipality’s Department of Education. The school programme had been approved, and the finance department had been asked to find the resources. Thus, in spite of challenges, there are possibilities.

Lessons learnt from other countries

The first gender-responsive budgeting initiative took place in Australia in the mid-1980s. The Australian Government attempted to analyze government budgets from a gender perspective and introduced Women’s Budget Statements in government departments as a tool for mainstreaming gender into economic and social policy. Since then, the Australian experience has been introduced into the political agenda in many countries worldwide.

At the same time, participatory approaches progressively take place worldwide. Some countries in transition, such as Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico, have incorporated participatory budgeting initiatives in their municipality planning, where gender concerns have also been successfully integrated.⁵³ Participatory initiatives in Brazil have proved their cost-effectiveness and helped increase the presence of women in the decision-making process.⁵⁴ National plans in Azerbaijan and Moldova consider women’s economic rights, access to economic resources, support for women’s entrepreneurship, self-employment and prevention of gender-based violence.⁵⁵ Special attention to preventing domestic violence is given in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Ukraine was the first country in the post-Soviet region to draft a law on “State guarantees for the realization of equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men” and to adopt a law against domestic violence in 2002.⁵⁶

Canadian experience shows that participatory approaches help to share and redistribute resources for local projects, such as recreation programmes and youth services. They also help to focus more time and energy on communicating with citizens and further developing the community’s capacity for consensus decision-making.⁵⁷ In Brazil, local decision-making is based upon a mandatory participatory budgeting process.⁵⁴ In Poland, partnerships with non-state actors play a great role in securing sustainable economic development at municipal level. Since European Union membership, Poland has initiated a number of activities aimed at addressing gender inequalities. Equality between women and men is one of the EU’s fundamental values; consequently gender mainstreaming is a key strategy in all policy fields. For example, the Szczecin Municipality, through partnerships with private developers and street associations has managed to launch community-based programmes to address the needs of the communities.⁵⁸ In Lodz Municipality a participatory budgeting initiative was introduced in 2011.^*

Gender equitable processes have taken place in Rwanda, where political will made it possible for the Government to undertake significant efforts to implement gender mainstreaming at all levels of the decision-making process. Rwanda is the only country in the world with a majority of women in its parliament (56%). A national gender policy and machinery were also adopted there in 2004.⁵⁹ Gender-responsive budgeting has also been in progress in the health, education and agriculture sectors. Officials of these ministries received training and were required to develop a gender budget statement ensuring gender sensitivity in government strategies, such as in the economic development and poverty reduction programme.

Conclusions

Lack of systematic work on elimination of gender gaps and gender inequality, most specifically in political institutions, has been the case in the Russian government in recent years. Since the 1990s the government has shown a backward tendency, away from gender equality, shifting back towards patriarchal assumptions that women’s place is in the home with traditional gender roles. Gender discrimination leads to significant social and economic loss, and lack of inclusion of gender-sensitive perspectives reduces the efficiency of social policy at all levels of governance in Russia today.

In spite of the scarcity of budgetary resources (which is true, after all, for the national budget of any country), there are possibilities for the introduction of gender-responsive budgeting using participatory approaches, including to budgets at local as well as national level. Strong partnerships between government and civil society institutions, such as Public Chambers, Municipalities and women’s NGOs, are needed as an incentive for the process. Long-term capacity building is necessary, especially for local governments, so that they are able to address the needs of the communities they serve. But at this moment they are weak, poorly resourced, have a lack of knowledge of gender equality-related methodologies – e.g. for gender mainstreaming, budgeting and planning – and are limited by low political will and commitment. These challenges result in unmet gender needs in Russia. Poor and marginalized women and men have many capacities to improve their own lives. As it is observed in Bashkortostan in central Russia, gender-responsive budgeting and forecasting can be introduced at the municipal level, especially through the use of training and sensitization and awareness campaigns.

Support for improvements in sex-disaggregated data, gender-responsive social and financial standards for planning and forecasting, and harmonized data based on international commitments should continue and be expanded. Gender needs assessments, monitoring of gender issues in programming to improve gender-responsiveness, gender-based analyses of government projects, and gender mainstreaming in ongoing/future research, should all be a part of programming at all levels of governance. Finally, gender-inclusive national goals, policy and monitoring could help the achievement of equal representation at policy-making level, decrease the double burden of job and family responsibilities, and combat discrimination at work and violence against women at home.

Notes

* e.g. Mikhael Gorbachev, former USSR President, repeatedly expressed this opinion in high level political forums.¹²

* From the author’s hot-line experience, among the cases of domestic violence at least 15% attributes to male being victims of domestic violence, committed by female partner.

* From informal interviews with: L.Bagautdinova, head of the economic department of Ufa City Municipality; Prof. R. Gataullin, former Vice-Ministry of Economy of Bashkortostan Republic and Chairman of the Finance Committee of the regional parliament; and Prof. I. Zulkarnay, Professor of Economics with specialization in state and municipal governance.

* From a phone interview with Lodz Plenipotentiary, 29 November, 2012.