Gender budgeting is an approach to budgeting that uses fiscal policy and administration to promote gender equality, and girls and women’s development. The fiscal authorities at any level of government can assess the needs of men and women; identify key outcomes or goals; plan, allocate, and distribute public funds; and monitor and evaluate achievements. Countries have taken many routes to gender budgeting efforts to promote gender equality and girls and women’s development and each approach reflects not only the country’s goals but also the particular budget process and administrative capabilities.

This toolkit has two parts: gender budgeting and gender equality indices. The gender budgeting dataset contains information on 84 national gender budgeting initiatives around the world, of which 23 national initiatives are investigated in depth in six regional surveys.

The gender equality indices dataset contains two composite indices: Gender Development Index (GDI) and Gender Inequality Index (GII). Both of them were initially developed by the United Nations Development Programme and have been extended and slightly reformulated to construct a consistent time series by Stotsky, Shibuya, Kolovich and Kebhaj (2016). A higher value on the GDI represents more gender equality, while a lower value on the GII represents more equality. Please see the detailed index description under the Methodology section on the Data Mapper webpage.

The data in this toolkit are provided “as is” and “as available,” and every effort is made to ensure, but not guarantee, their timeliness, accuracy and availability. Please send comments and questions to the IMF Gender Budgeting Toolkit team at genderbudgetingtoolkit@imf.org.