8th Edition of the Forum of Senior Budget Officals of the Afritac centre Member States (FOHBAC)
Participants discuss “gender-sensitive budgeting” in Brazzaville
11 Mar, 2019
The 8thedition of the Forum of Senior Budget Officials of the Member States of the IMF's Technical Assistance Regional Centre for central Africa (Afritac centre) was opened Monday 11 March 2019 in Brazzaville, by Henri Loundou cabinet director, representing the the Congolese Minister of Finance and Budget, Calixte Nganongo.
Under the theme “Inequality-sensitive budgeting: the case of gender”. The opening ceremony of this forum was marked by five speeches by the president of FOHBAC, Cyrill Edou Alo'o; the representative of AFRITAC centre coordinator, Abdoulaye Touré; the cabinet director of the Congolese Minister of Women Empowerment and Women integration in the development, Cornellie Adou-Ngapi; the deputy representative of UN-WOMEN Bureau (Cameroon), Hind Jalal and Henri Loundou, cabinet director of the Minister of Finance.
According to Cyrill Edou Alo'o, “gender-sensitive budgeting is the recommended strategy to ensure that the fiscal policy put in place by Member States and the breakdown of State resources take into account the priority measures to which the majority of our States have agreed amid reducing inequalities and accelerating sustainable development, including the 12 points for the Action Platform adopted at the end of the 4thUnited Nations Conference held in Beijing in 1995. These include, improving women's acces to quality health care, equitable access to economic processes and opportunities, and better involvement of women in managing environmental problems”.
For his part, Henri Loundou recalled that it is thanks to the process of changing the principle of public financial management that FOHBAC was created in September 2010 in Brazzaville.
The objective of the Forum's founders, he continued, was to establish a framework for dialogue, an exchange of experience between the peers of the sub-region in charge of implementing the new institutional framework for public finance management that is oriented towards result-based management (RBM). Since the Forum's 9 years of existence, it is clear that many efforts have been made by the respective States to adopt new institutional frameworks for managing their public finance, he said. While most countries are preparing for a complete overhaul of public financial management, others have shifted to programme-based budget presentation, the speaker said.
Finally Henri Loundou hoped that “the pooling of experiences in this way will make it possible to capitalize on each other's sucesses and failures for a more optimal implementation of the budget in programme mode”.
For five days, participants will discuss the following five sub-subjects before developing a roadmap for the future: An overview of international commitments on economic and social development and combating gender inequalities; gender in national public policies; national development policy and strategy and sector policies and strategies; gender-sensitive budgeting: concepts, principles and process; tools for gender analysis of the budget and gender budget documentation.
