Gender budgeting : a road map to implementation in Malta

Abstract

Throughout this project I explored how other EU Member States are already implementing gender budgeting. Malta has much to learn on the subject from other nations' experiences. Within the local context, I did not find any literature specific to gender budgeting. For my research, I used qualitative data by making interviews to select people who will have an important role in the implementation of gender budgeting when this policy is put on the national agenda. The questions I posed were aimed at bringing out the present state of affairs in Malta and the perceptions of people in key positions. Their response reflects their experience but not all of them visualise the benefits of gender budgeting. This project concludes that gender budgeting is a practically unknown subject in Malta. For its introduction to succeed politicians and senior Government officials need to be made aware of the subject; then dissemination of information should go wider to reach the general public. Following this, systems must be amended to include gender budgeting into them, beginning with the disaggregation of all data by gender in the national statistics. Only after all this is in place, can the incorporation of gender budgeting into our policies and budgets become effective.