South Africa: Giving the Budget a Gender Agenda

Talk is cheap, but carrying out the promises you make less so. That being the case, has all the talk about ensuring equality between men and women in South Africa resulted in action where it counts most: the allocation of funds along gender lines in the national budget? Nearly a decade ago, the Ministry of Finance promised to provide a breakdown of ways in which the budget promoted gender equality. It still hasn't happened, but finance ministry spokesperson Thoraya Pandy was unable to comment on the reasons for this. "There's a wall of silence on this issue," says Penny Parenzee of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, a Pretoria-based think-tank, noting that this may - at least in part - result from fears that men will lose out in a budget which makes a nod to women's needs."