Where next for Gender Responsive Budgeting?

Where next for 'gender' budgeting? Has the concept of gender budgeting aged well and matured into fully formed practice over its 30+ years in circulation in Europe, and its longer history globally? As additional and new forms of 'strategic budget initiatives' have been developed, gender budgeting risks being overtaken and set aside by human rights, children's rights, green, wellbeing, and other forms of alternative budget analysis and challenges to established processes. While there are commonalities to these different approaches, a gender lens and commitment to transformative gender equality as an outcome of public policy and resourcing decisions is not always present. Adaptation is inevitable as different political and economic contexts require more tailored approaches from advocates and actors, and to meet the different requirements for implementation in distinct budgetary processes. However, some of the real and perceived institutional 'resistances' have many common features, and approaches to gender budgeting have been vulnerable to some of the same experiences. These include the evaporation of a focus on gender equality, procedural drag, and intransigent attitudes. By contrast, other jurisdictions have benefitted from engaged insiders sustained political will and legislative support to withstand the vulnerabilities of the electoral cycle. This paper will consider some of these dynamics drawing on a range of experiences at national and sub-national in different country contexts over the last 30 years to draw out what conceptual, practical, and research responses are required to sustain Gender Budgeting.