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Finance
experts have stated that the government should adopt gender responsive
budgeting which seeks to measure the gaps between policy commitments
with respect to human rights and women’s rights instruments for better
outcomes of policies.

Azuka
Menkiti, a faculty member of the Centre for Budget & Policy
Advocacy, ActionAid Nigeria, said inequalities exist between men and
women and in recognition of unequal gender relations that put women in
a subordinated position, various declarations and conventions have been
adopted to redress the situation.

According
to her, Gender Aware Policy Appraisals (GAPA), seeks to find out how
policies and programmes reflect women’s and men’s different needs and
in what ways they are likely to increase or reduce gender inequalities,
Sex-disaggregated Public Expenditure Benefit Incidence Analyses,
estimates the distribution of budget resources among males and females.

Husseni
Abdu, country manager of ActionAid said all significant changes in
human history have been propelled by the struggle of people who have
directly or indirectly been disempowered in the socio-economic and
political construct of society.

“It
is in this context that ELBAG seeks to build information and education
that empowers citizens to take action and create the desired change.
This engagement should be seen as a process of empowering citizens to
demand and claim their rights” he said.

“We
at ActionAid understand that the structural constraints that shape the
everyday life of poor people are found at all levels of decision
making, therefore we continue to strive to link these policy
environments and ensure that the concerns of people are reflected in
major decisions. With the market driven nature of globalisation, ELBAG
provides a veritable tool not just for understanding its dynamics, but
also how to critically engage it in the interest of the poor” he said.

Monitoring National Budgets

Bimbola
Akinwunmi, in a presentation at the training said citizens should also
monitor the National budget for better participation and for them to be
in an enlightened position to challenge corruption.

“There
are three categories of budget monitors, beside specific persons and
institutions required by the laws of the country to monitor the budget.
These are the executives, the legislature and the citizens. Other
actors carrying out public expenditure monitoring in Nigeria include
the pressure groups”.

According
to her, citizens can do this through sourcing for the budget and
documents on the budget; the speech of the president, governor or
chairman, categorising budget votes into sectors and determining the
priorities of government and investigating how and when monies are
being released for implementation of projects.

“They
can also observe budget implementation by documenting the name of
contractor, nature of project, where project is located, when project
started, progress report on project and when project is completed and
analyse the level of compliance or deviation from budget votes based on
observations already made”.

Information
on budgets can be sourced from the Ministry/ department of Finance,
Office of Executive Head of Government, Office of Finance and
Appropriation Committee of the legislature, Ministry of information,
Federal Office of Statistics, Government Printers, Public Libraries,
University Libraries, Internet & Research Centres including NGOs
with such facility and the media especially newspapers and magazines
among others.

According
to Mr. Abdu, access to these information, which is the ability of the
citizens to obtain budget related information from the government and
public authorities, would aid their access to participation and help
citizens provide informed, timely and meaningful input and influence
policies (budget) from formulation to implementation and review stages
and access to justice.

Nigeria’s
Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan on April 22, signed into law a 4.6
trillion naira budget for 2010. The budget increases expenditure by 50
percent from last year as Nigeria tries to spend its way out of a
downturn, but it also risks pushing the OPEC member to a budget deficit
of more than 5 percent.

Analysts
have welcomed the government’s move to boost the economy but cautioned
the quality of spending would be key, given Nigeria’s reputation for
inefficient budget implementation. They also believe that the poor
level of execution of previous budgets should not be discounted.

Omar
Oosman Jobe, the policy and budget analyst, Pro Poor Advocacy Group,
Gambia said he hopes to be better positioned to address budget related
issues. “Our Company, as well as some other non governmental
organisation, have built a strong relationship with the National
Assembly over there. I have come to share what we do in the Gambia, the
National Assembly and community based assessment issues and also to
learn from others. I would be better empowered in this field when I get
back”.

ELBAG is an attempt by ActionAid to demonstrate change in action, a
change that is premised on mobilizing active agencies for the purpose
of social transformation. Governance as an arena where policy is
formulated, legitimized and implemented must bear the hallmark of
participation and social justice driven by strong principles of
democratic allocation and management collective resources.