The Center of Excellence for the Gender Responsive Budgeting (CE-BSG) under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, organized, Thursday, June 13th 2017 in Rabat, a meeting on the launching of the prefiguration operations concerning the integration of gender-responsiveness in the budget policies. This meeting was chaired by Mr. Fouzi LEKJAA, Director of Budget and President of the steering committee of the Center of Excellence for the Gender Responsive Budgeting and Mrs. Leila RHIWI, Representative of the UN Women Multi-. Country Office, Maghreb. Took also part in this event the Secretaries-General of all the Government departments involved in this set of prefiguration actions.
This meeting is part of the dynamic of the CE-BSG with a view of the institutionalization of the gender in the planning and budgeting of public policies, through accompanying government departments in the gradual adoption process of the provisions of the organic law on the Finance law in the area of budget management including gender issues.
It should be noted, in this context that, the CE-BSG initiated in 2017 a first set of prefiguration operations which covered 10 government departments ( Economy and Finance, health, social development, sport and youth, culture, employment, water, interior through CAS-INDH “Fund to support the National Human Development Initiative”, agriculture and fishing). The second set is planned for the Finance act 2018 as well as a third one which will enable the process Mainstreaming in 2019.
During his speech, The Director of the budget specified that the BSG is part of the reform of the Moroccan public finance. He focused on the need to strengthen the achievements and address challenges in order to cope with the fast pace of this reform and meet the objectives. He also noted that dealing with a difficult global context, equality precept is not only regarded as a key issue in the human rights, but also a basic requirement for sustainable and inclusive development of the country.
Mr. Fouzi LEKJAA stated, in this occasion, that the reform of the organic law on the finance law is a real reference framework for public finance and paves the way for the institutionalization of the gender issues in planning and budgeting public policies.
The representative of the UN Women, on the other hand, pointed to the main achievements of Morocco in the BSG issue and which enabled to classify the country as a world reference in this field. She also stressed the importance of funding to reduce inequalities.
Moreover, this meeting was an opportunity for Mrs. Katrin SCHNEIDER, International Expert in BSG, to present the international experiences in incorporating BSG into the budget process.
In addition, Mrs. Nadia BENALI, National Director of CE-BSG, presented the Moroccan experience of integrating gender responsiveness in the government departments’ budgets. She set out a roadmap with a view to accompany the different leading ministerial departments for the design of the “morasses budgétaires” (a detailed document accompanying the Finance Act) performance reports and the submission of a detailed document on gender-responsive.
- At the end of this meeting, a number of recommendations were presented:
- The adherence of top management for better decision-making in this field; Capacity building and the development of know-how;
- The sharing and exchange of experiences of government departments having already integrated gender in their budgetary process;
- The preparation of the process for the 2018 Finance Act;
- The gender analysis of fiscal policy in Morocco.