Gender budget audit in Nepal

An appraisal of the budgetary process, budget allocation, implementation and its outcomes in Nepal in a gender perspective. For in-depth analysis, agriculture, education, and health sectors have been selected as examples. Except for the field level information, the analysis is based on available macro-level secondary information and interviews with related officials. A field study was conducted at the grass-root level in three districts with the main objectives of evaluating the budgetary process in a gender perspective. For expenditure analysis, the budgetary programs are classified in three main categories: exclusively women focused programs, pro-women programs and other programs. The first category includes those budgetary allocations that are specifically targeted to women while the second category includes those that may not be exclusively targeted to women but contain components so as to benefit women more than other programs. The third category includes the rest of the allocations denoted as other programs. This, however, does not mean that such expenditure does not have any exclusively women targeted or pro-women components at all. But many of these programs may have both positive and/or negative impacts on gender relations. A detailed analysis of these programs was not possible within the given terms of reference, which focuses primarily on budgetary processes. This gender budget audit has assessed through gender perspective macro-economic, fiscal, subsidy and expenditure policies, and revenue measures like import and excise duties, value added tax (VAT), and income taxes on the basis of available secondary materials