Strategic Governance and Gender Budgeting of Local Governments: Paths and Experiences in Italy

Through a qualitative approach and an empirical analysis, this study aims to investigate the most significant gender budgeting initiatives implemented by Italian local Governments. The study has analyzed twenty-seven gender budgets carried out in Regions, Provinces and Municipalities beyond the nine laws enacted by eight Regions (Piedmont, Liguria, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, Calabria, Puglia) and one Autonomous Province (Trento). The analysis of the legislation underlines modalities and measures for the adoption of the gender budget that the Regions adopt internally or promote on their territory. The analysis of the laws and gender budgets carried out has allowed underlining indicators/methodologies of gender budgeting processes. With respect to the approaches adopted, a recurrent element and therefore to be highlighted is the widespread methodological homogeneity on a regional scale or the acquisition on a local scale (provincial and municipal) of the settings that have been adopted by the Region to which the Province or the Municipality refer. Currently, available evidence suggests to public authorities the need to go further than the sporadic implementation of gender budgeting, systematizing a gender-based analysis and a gender-equality-oriented evaluation with regard to the distribution of resources and the explanation of budgets. Gender Budgeting has multiple purposes: it promotes accountability and transparency of local Governments; increases gender responsive participation in the budgeting process; and advances gender equality and women’s rights. Moreover, the gender budget report plays a particularly important role in the improvement of governance: it is a tool available to public administration for self-evaluation and therefore defines increasingly effective and fair administration methods. In this perspective, the emerging key point is, perhaps, the need to find incentives and motivations for the application of the gender budget report which, although starting from the legislation, are supported by practice and by the search for a concrete useful return of the instrument. Integrating a gender budgeting methodology into the ordinary budgetary processes allows governments to better understand the different effects that policies and actions, revenue and expenditure, can have on women and men.