Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova: Gender-responsive budgeting a necessity when setting state priorities

President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova said she met with four members of the Scientific Board at the international conference "Annual Meeting of the Network for Gender-Responsive Budget Oversight and the Community of Practitioners Using Gender-Responsive Budgeting", held in Ohrid.

"With Diane Elson, emeritus professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex, Professor Gloria Alarcon-Garcia of the University of Murcia, Professor Kristina Misheva of Goce Delchev University in Shtip, and Maria Risteska, director of the Center for Research and Policy-Making, we discussed the role of gender-responsive budgeting in creating quality public policies, as well as the application of science and the experience of civil society in the decision-making process and in making good decisions," Siljanovska-Davkova wrote on her Facebook profile.

Gender-responsive budgeting as a policy tool

In her post the president stressed the practical importance of the approach: "For me, gender-responsive budgeting is not a technical category, but a necessity when determining state priorities to ensure public spending generates public value and meets the diverse needs of as broad a circle of people as possible, including those who belong to different categories and especially the vulnerable."

She added that budgeting should produce more than technical compliance: "The ultimate goal of budgeting is not only a gender-responsive budget, but a good budget, based on evidence, sensitive to different needs, transparent, accountable and capable of creating public value. I believe that the best policies are born where science, civil society and institutions do not act separately, but combine knowledge, experience and institutional responsibility, guided by a common commitment to a better and fairer society," the president wrote, noting also the publication "Gender-Responsive Budgeting in a South European Context" released by the prestigious publisher Palgrave Macmillan, edited by Dr. Maria Risteska, as evidence of the Network's excellence.

The conference in Ohrid brought together researchers and practitioners focused on how budgetary processes can be made more responsive to gendered needs. Siljanovska-Davkova's meeting highlighted cooperation between academia, civil society and institutions as key to designing public policies that respond to diverse social needs.

Photo: press material from the event