Gender and Development Budget

It was time to stop just talking about gender and start providing substance to the rhetoric by supporting it with a budget.¹

The Gender and Development (GAD) budget policy was introduced through the General Appropriations Act (GAA) in 1995 as “The Women’s Budget” to support with actual resources the implementation of programmes and projects on the ground, focused on gender advocacy and commitment to women’s empowerment.² This policy directs all government departments and agencies to allocate a minimum of five percent (5%) of their total annual budgets for gender programs, projects and activities. It has been an important feature of the annual GAA and further strengthened by the Magna Carta of Women (RA 9710).

RA 9710 further defined the national policy for the recognition, protection, fulfillment, and promotion of the rights of Filipino women, especially those coming from the marginalized sectors. It mandates all government instrumentalities to adopt Gender Mainstreaming as a strategy for implementing the law. The Magna Carta of Women identified GAD Planning and Budgeting as an essential mechanism to ensure the implementation of the law.

A GAD Plan and Budget is a systematically designed set of programs, projects and activities with corresponding budget carried out by government agencies departments, including their attached agencies, offices, bureaus, state universities and colleges, government-owned and controlled corporations, local government units and other government instrumentalities over a given period of time to address the gender issues and concerns in their respective sectors and constituents. It systematizes an agency’s approach to gender mainstreaming, women’s empowerment and gender equality.³

The PCW monitors the compliance of national government agencies, bureaus, offices, state universities and colleges, government owned and controlled corporations, legislative and judiciary branches, constitutional bodies, and other government instrumentalities to the GAD Budget Policy, which includes the submission of annual GAD Plans and Budgets (GPBs) and GAD Accomplishment Reports (ARs). In September 2014, the PCW rolled out the use of the Gender Mainstreaming Monitoring System (GMMS), for the submission of the annual GPBs and ARs. 

GAD Budget Policy Compliance Reports

• 2021 GAD Budget Report
• 2020 GAD Budget Report Executive Summary
• 2019 GAD Budget Report
• Trends and Updates on the Submission, Review and Endorsement of FY 2018-2019 GPBs and Acceptance of FY 2017-2018 GAD ARs

GAD Planning and Budgeting References

• Joint Circular 2012-01: Guidelines for the Preparation of Annual GAD Plans and Budgets and Accomplishment Reports to Implement the Magna Carta of Women
• Joint Memorandum Circular 2013-01: Guidelines on the Localization of the Magna Carta of Women
• Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2016-01: Amendments to PCW-DILG-DBM-NEDA JMC No. 2013-01: Guidelines on the Localization of the Magna Carta of Women
• Magna Carta of Women
• Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022
• Philippine Plan for Gender-Responsive Development 1995-2025

Annual GAD Budget Call

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Cited Sources

¹ Honculada, Jurgette and Ofreneo-Pineda, Rosalinda. (2000). Transforming the Mainstream: Building a Gender-Responsive Bureaucracy in the Philippines 1975-1998. Manila: United Nations Development Fund for Women, p. 118.

² Ibid. p. 118.

3 Policy Development, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Division – Philippine Commission on Women. Trends and Updates on the Submission, Review, and Endorsement of FY 2018-2019 Gender and Development plans and Budgets and Acceptance of FY 2017-2018 GAD Accomplishment Reports. July 2019, p. 2.