Effectiveness of Gender Responsive Budget Implementation within the Provincial Government
“Before an official can implement a decision, he must be aware that a decision has been made and an order for its implementation has been issued” (Edward, 1980: 17). It is hoped that this sound can become an ingrained awareness for officials within the provincial government to carry out their obligations as part of the state with the state’s duty as a promoter of advancing prosperity, including in meeting gender-based needs, one of which is through the implementation of a gender-responsive budget.
The issue of gender equality has been stated both in international goals, namely SDGs number 5, as well as in the national mandate in state goals in the 1945 Constitution and Law Number 39 of 1999 concerning Human Rights. The power brought by these three big foundations already sounds like a mass campaign whose achievements are expected to increase from time to time.
However, the facts on the ground speak differently. Nurhaeni (2011) stated that gender mainstreaming, including in budgeting, was found not to be optimal because the public bureaucracy as a policy implementer, often demonstrated values that were in conflict with the issue of gender responsive development so that innovative and creative efforts did not have enough power to handle this strategic issue. Moreover, gender issues in development are often not given their own flag and occupy a marginal position because of the strong patriarchal culture that still dominates. In fact, gender mainstreaming (PUG) in development has basically started since Presidential Instruction no. 9 Years concerning the implementation of Gender Mainstreaming in the 2010-2014 Medium Term Development Plan which was then reduced down to the regional level as stated in Minister of Home Affairs Regulation Number 67 of 2011 to implement Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting (PPRG) through gender analysis.
Referring to the concept of gender which describes the roles and social relations of men and women in society, gender-responsive budgeting is about allocating different budgets when different needs are encountered therein (Sodani and Sharma, 2008). KEMENPPPA 2004 stated that this was done to ensure justice and equality for both women and men in the aspects of access, participation, control and development benefits, one of which is exemplified by the provision of childcare facilities in the workplace because of the roles and relationships that are socially embedded. Each of them certainly affects the need for “load bearing” differently. In this case, Elson (1998) stated that budgets basically have different impacts on women and men, but these budgets are often put together without considering gender equality. So how exactly? Preparing a gender-responsive budget must respond fairly to the needs of various different groups, both men and women. Which means, the entire budget (not asking for an additional budget, however) is mapped according to its proportions by considering the beneficial aspects for each.
Effectiveness in this discussion leads to the understanding that people actually act in accordance with the goals they have set so that success can be achieved (Siregar, 2018). At the provincial level, the Gender Responsive Budget (ARG) is a form of PPRG initiation for programs and activities in several SKPD (Regional Work Units).
In Central Java Province, the regional government issued Regional Regulation Number 4 of 2009 concerning the Regional Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMD) for Java Province for 2008-2013 with one of the strategic issues set out therein regarding the non-realization of gender equality and justice. In the RPJMD it is written that 30% of SKPD must implement PUG where in each SKPD there must also be a gender focal point, namely regional apparatus who are gender sensitive and capable of implementing PUG in every policy. However, it is very unfortunate that the results of the study found that gender focal points do not have enough energy to be able to integrate gender perspectives in SKPD policies because generally they are staff. Meanwhile, at the planning and budgeting stage, the human resources involved are echelon 3 officials, with data findings stating that the majority of echelon 3 levels do not yet have an understanding of gender so that the sense of gender sensitivity that has an influence in integrating gender perspectives is still empty, which means that gender responsive policies have not yet been achieved. This is then relevant to Edward’s (1980) statement that it is important to look at the tendencies (behavior and perspective) of the implementers and the need for the availability of resources including facilities that lead to the main expertise of the implementers themselves to be able to translate the policies that have been formulated so that can be realized.
Similarities were found in the results of Khairawati’s (2011) study, the implementation of Permendagri No. 15 of 2008 concerning General Guidelines for the Implementation of Gender Mainstreaming in Regions, namely West Kalimantan Province, shows that the gender focal point is still not functioning, lack of understanding of executives, weak coordination system, no explanation regarding working mechanisms, unavailability of disaggregated data and up to ultimately automatically results in the guess that gender responsive budgeting has not yet been realized.
On a different island, research entitled “Gender Responsive Budget Analysis in South Sumatra Province” provided findings that in 2014, of the 50 SKPDs in South Sumatra Province, 21 of them had implemented gender responsive budget planning. This statement is supported by the results of analysis in planning which is realized in the preparation of a vision and mission, regional development priorities, general policy direction for regional spending and work programs that are fundamental to justice and gender equality, and produces a value of 0.13. However, this figure is only found at the planning stage. At the budgeting stage, the visible value is only 0.02. This value also means that the budget’s alignment with justice and gender equality is still very minimal. This fact is then relevant to Burnier’s (2005) statement, “women are present and play a role, but their contributions are omitted, forgotten or erased when the narrative is formed”.
The narrative presented up to this point may sound more pro-women. However, as long as there is a gap in the Human Development Index (HDI), it means that gender equality has not been achieved, and based on data from the Central Statistics Agency, Indonesia’s HDI in 2021 shows 76.25 men and 69.59 women.
One big thing that is highlighted in the effectiveness of implementing this gender responsive budget is political will. The high-ranking officials of the three provinces mentioned above have shown political will by issuing legal force as an initial way to continue the mandate that has been given to them to create a collective consensus and a culture of gender equality at the provincial level. However, as presented in the data above, we realize that implementing gender responsive budgeting is not easy because it turns out that decision/policy makers and implementers are not necessarily in the same boat. It is hoped that the readiness of resources to implement existing regulations is also contained in the organizational structure (with the aim of transferring knowledge) between various parties who are members and have authority in successfully implementing a gender responsive budget.
