Gender and Participatory Budgeting and Monitoring

About the project

One of the flagship programs of CRPM is the Macedonia Budget Program which has been implemented in three phases.

Project duration: September 2023 – August 2025
Financed by: Agency for Mobility and the European Union – ERASMUS+ Programme.
Final beneficiaries: Youth from Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia.
Target groups:

Youth aged 18 to 30 from Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia who are eager to learn more about environmental issues and take actions for a change.
Future leaders in the communities willing to successfully complete the program.

Phase 1

Phase 1 involved analysis of the public finance transparency; advocacy for change of the Organic Law on Budgets 2005 and introduction of participatory and transparent budgeting principles, followed by capacity building of CSOs and local governments to utilize the newly regulated mechanisms such as budgetary forums, publication of the budget and annual account on the municipal web sites and etc. For this purpose, the organization implemented trainings with the two stakeholder groups and produced a Citizen’s Gudiebook to Budgets.

Donors: Friedrich Ebebrt Stiftung

Phase 2

Phase 2 involved strengthening the role of civil society as a watchdog to government (local and national) on how they use public finances. To this end the organization has intiated and built capacities, mentored a coalition of CSOs call Budget watchdogs. The CRPM led efforts to build a budget watchdog network through the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) funded “Unleashing budget watchdog” project which included 9 organizations.

Donors: USAID/Institute for Sustainable Communities

During Covid 19 CRPM monitored the use of emergency funding by the Governments of the region and measured their impact on women and vulnerable groups as well as provided recommendations to reduce the negative effects on the economy using gender-responsive budgeting tools, i.e. gender budget cost analysis and gender-responsive assessment of beneficiaries of measures funded through public finances.

CRPM currently implements the project BAT-Civil Society – Civic Oversight Capacities for Budget Accountability and Transparency in Albania with support of the EU with an overall objective to improve the governance and oversight of budget planning and implementation by strengthening the capacities of civil society organizations at the local and national levels to effectively participate in budget planning and to monitor and evaluate budget implementation. The project is implemented in the period 2023-2026 and will improve current government policies and practices on budget planning, implementation, and reporting through greater public oversight.

Donor: EU

Phase 3

Phase 3 built on the budget watchdog methodology developed in phase 3 and by introducing gender perspective, CRPM emerged as a pioneer in using gender responsive budgeting in public finance monitoring. Since 2019 the organization instigated the formation of the Gender Budget Watchdog Network of CSOs (link to GBWN web site) from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Moldova, Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia have mobilized over 100 CSOs built capacities, network and advocated together for equal redistribution of public finances for the needs of women and men by using gender responsive budgeting tools in production of gender budget initiatives and gender budget watchdog reports.

Donors: Austrian development agency and the Swedish Development cooperation; EU; CEI.

Relevant publications:
Guidebook on Advocacy and Lobbying for Gender Responsive Budgeting and Climate Change;
Guidebook for Gender Budget Watchdogging in Climate Change Financing;
Guidebook on Gender Impact Assessments for Budgets;
Guidebook on Gender Budget Analysis;
Guidebook on cost-benefit/cost-effectiveness assessment.

CRPM is a member of the International Budget Partnership and has been a partner in the production and advocacy of findings of the Open Budget Index, which sets the benchmarks for reform of the Macedonian budget process.

International Budget partnership

The organization is currently implementing a project with International Budget partnership – IBP that through capacity building for budget literacy and using PEFA tools in CSO budget participation and advocacy; works towards improvement of good governance in public finance management. To this end the organization is strengthening the capacity of CSOs to read the budget and participate in budgetary processes; increases awareness on PEFA framework and its use for advocacy to improve good governance in public finance management by CSOs.