Tk 92,765 cr proposes for gender budget

A separate gender budget of Taka 92,765 crore for 40 ministries has been proposed for ensuring gender parity and women empowerment in line with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) while placing the budget for new financial year before the Jatiya Sangsad today. 

"We are formulating gender budget report on 40 ministries or divisions for the last few years. This programme will be made more target-oriented on the basis of an ongoing assessment," Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said in his budget speech. 

Under the gender budget in the fiscal year 2016-17, allocation for women development is Taka 92,765 crore which is 27.5 percent of total budget, 4.73 percent of GDP and Taka 20,893 crore more than the previous fiscal. 

Allocation for women development was Taka 27,248 crore in 2009-10 which increased at Taka 71,872 crore in 2015-16. Average annual growth rate is around 17 percent. Allocation for women's advancement compared to total budget is 27 percent during this period.

Each year, the government is presenting to the national parliament a gender budget report that explains the policies and strategies for advancement of women, activities of various ministries or divisions that have implications on women development, connected with female welfare attained, major achievement for uplifting women's rights and allocation for women development. 

In 2009-10 fiscal budget, such analysis regarding gender budget was done for the first time for four ministries. From the last fiscal year, the government started gender budget report contains analysis of women's advancement of 40 ministries or divisions. 

In this year's report, 40 ministries have been divided into three sections -- empowering women and enhancing their social dignity, improving women's productivity and participation in labor market, and widening women's effective access to general public sector services and income generating activities.

Source: BSS.