Last Thursday and Friday, members of the Northern Ireland Women’s Budget Group headed to the European Conference for Gender Budgeting in Nicosia, Cyprus! It was a fantastic learning experience, and we’ve brought back a lot of ideas…
On Thursday Morning, we were bused to the University of Cyprus, where we registered and connected with members of the UK Women’s Budget Group and the Scottish Women’s Budget Group.
The day’s activities kicked off with welcomes from Mary Pyrgos (Moderator of the Cyprus Gender Budgeting Platform), Josie Christodoulou (Commissioner for Gender Equality, Cyprus), and Annita Demetriou (President of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus), with a keynote speech from Professor Diane Elson on why governments should conduct a gender analysis of their budgets.
The first half of the day was filled with reflections on gender budgeting from experts like Professor Angela O’Hagan and Dr. Elizabeth Klatzer, as well as outlining institutional engagement with gender budgeting like the OECD, EIGE, DG REFORM, the EU Gender Flagship Project and UN Women. This was followed by the sharing of achievements and challenges of gender budgeting in countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Scotland, and Portugal, and in cities like Vienna, local authorities in France, and Reykjavik.
As the day came to a close, there was a full picture of how gender budgeting is making a difference nationally and locally in Europe. What stuck with the NIWBG members was the clear commitment to gender budgeting and the understanding of its importance by Cypriot officials, particularly the Auditor General of the Republic of Cyprus.
Friday kicked off with two workshops led by colleagues from the UK Women’s Budget Group on ‘Gender Analysis of Expenditure’ and ‘Using Statistics for Gender Equality.’ Both workshops were a fantastic way to start the morning, and allowed our members to learn from and work with other conference attendees from across Europe.
The afternoon began with a presentation focused on gender equality and taxation, followed by another round of presentations highlighting global experiences with gender budgeting from Australia, Kosovo, and India. This session closed with an address from Alexandra Geese EMP on the growing importance of gender budgeting.
To close the conference, attendees and organisers had a chance to discuss the most important takeaways and next steps.
We are so grateful to the organisers, the Cyprus Gender Budgeting Platform and the UKWBG, for inviting us and putting together an incredible two days. We’ve returned to Northern Ireland inspired, motivated, and energised. Watch this space for more Northern Ireland-gender budgeting news!