This presentation, “Hand in Hand? Gender Responsive Budgeting and Feminist Movements”, was presented by Koketso Msenya at the IAFFE Annual Conference in Colombia. It examines the evolution of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) in South Africa and asks whether it remains a transformative feminist tool or has become increasingly technocratic and disconnected from redistributive goals.
Feminist origins of GRB
The presentation traces GRB to the Women’s Budget Initiative (WBI) established in 1995, highlighting its roots in a strong post-apartheid women’s movement. Early GRB sought to challenge the idea that macroeconomic policy is gender-neutral by addressing the intersecting legacies of race, class, and gender. It also brought unpaid care and social reproduction into economic policy debates.
From transformation to the “tick-box trap”
South Africa’s 2019 National Framework and the Gender Responsive Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluation and Auditing Framework (GRPBMEAF) institutionalised GRB and sought to address intersectional inequalities. However, implementation remains uneven. The presentation identifies a “tick-box trap”, where gender tagging and compliance requirements can overshadow transformative tools such as gender impact assessments and participatory budgeting.
Austerity and the burden of care
The presentation links GRB’s challenges to South Africa’s broader macroeconomic environment. Austerity and contractionary budgets can reduce public services and shift the costs of social reproduction onto households, disproportionately affecting women and girls through increased unpaid care work, time poverty, and economic insecurity.
Challenging structural constraints
The presentation argues that GRB cannot be understood simply through the actions of individual women in political or institutional positions. Fiscal ceilings, expenditure constraints, and broader macroeconomic structures can significantly limit the redistributive possibilities of GRB. This reframes the debate from individual agency and representation towards the structural conditions shaping economic policy.
Reclaiming the politics of care
The presentation calls for a transformative politics of care that recognises unpaid care work as foundational to the economy. It argues that care should become a binding consideration in fiscal decision-making, helping reshape budgets around social reproduction, redistribution, and gender justice.
Conclusion
The presentation concludes that GRB must be reclaimed as a political and redistributive tool rather than reduced to a bureaucratic exercise. A feminist approach to fiscal policy requires confronting structural economic constraints and placing care, equality, and social justice at the centre of economic governance.