PRESENTATION: Financing for Gender Equality in Albania
This session presented the findings of the Albania: Gender Responsive Budgeting as a Tool for Better Policy Formulation Case Study featured in the publication Building Effective, Accountable, and Inclusive Institutions in Europe and Central Asia: Lessons from the Region.
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Building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions is a central theme of the World Bank’s Governance program in Europe and Central Asia. In the late 2000s, Albania embarked on a new era of designing more effective and inclusive policies. As early as 2008, Albania introduced a new organic law that made program budgeting mandatory and added performance-based indicators in medium-term budget programs that focused on goals, objectives, and outputs. As a result, gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) found a footing. The involvement of civil society was essential, and particular attention was given to educating and instructing ministries to include and disseminate gender-disaggregated data as part of the effort to advocate for gender equality.
During this interactive session, the speakers provided an overview of how Albania adapted their public financial management strategies to gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) with a focus on:
• Starting with the right legislation
• Timely political will as key to reform implementation
• Achieving the full awareness of all civil servants at all levels about gender-related issues is still a work in progress