Ukraine Zhytomyr City GRPFM 2022 /Gender Annex/
Annex 5 PEFA 2022 Ukraine Zhytomyr City Gender Responsive PFM Assessment
The PEFA 2022 Ukraine Zhytomyr City Gender Responsive PFM Report is an Annex to the PEFA 2022 Ukraine Zhytomyr City Sub-national Assessment.
Annex 5.1 Introduction
Purpose
The purpose of the gender-responsive PFM (hereinafter – GRPFM) assessment is to gather information on the budgeting and reporting systems of the Zhytomyr City Council in order to assess the extent to which public financial management responds to the needs of gender (male and female) and other vulnerable groups in the city.
This is one of the first pilots of gender-responsive PFM assessment at the sub-national government level. By this pilot, the gender-responsive PFM assessment, together with the present PEFA assessment, will not only provide a basis for aligning the Swiss SECO ELocFin project design with gender-responsive PFM mindset, but it is also expected to offer additional insights that may be used not only by SECO but also by other development partners and provide them with a better understanding of underlying concepts.
The assessment team used the Supplementary Framework for Assessing Gender-responsive Public Financial Management published by the PEFA Secretariat in January 2020.
The fieldwork was carried out at the same time the main PEFA assessment was conducted, in order to maximise the use of time and to reduce the level of interaction with government staff due to their busy schedule. Furthermore, some of the information gathered during the main PEFA assessment was used to assess the GRPFM; additional data were also gathered where necessary.
The GRPFM report (annexed to the main PEFA report) was subjected to the same PEFA Check requirements in terms of peer review and quality assurance.
Background
The central government of Ukraine is advanced in terms of the promulgation and development of gender equality laws, regulations and procedures/processes. These laws and procedures are equally applicable at the local government level. That said, local governments, including Zhytomyr City Council, have not mainstreamed these procedures and processes into the entire budget cycle. Table A-5.1 below provides a list of legislative instruments and policies adopted by the central government, applicable at the sub-national level yet to be actualized. At the city government level, it appears that there is less political will and an inadequate technical capacity for gender-responsive budgeting and reporting.
Table A-5.1: Legal and policy framework for gender equality
Legal and regulatory framework for the promotion of gender equality
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Annex 5.2 Overview of assessment findings
Chart 1 below summarises graphically GRPFM performance. Annex 5.3 below also summarizes the narrative performance of GRPFM performance.
At this stage, the City Government does not analyze the proposed changes in expenditure and revenue policies with information on gender impacts (GRPFM-1 rated ‘D’); this does not compare with the rating of the main PEFA assessment with regards to the analysis of the fiscal impact of policy proposals (PI-14.1 rated ‘A’).
The City Government’s public investment management system has no gender-responsive analysis to determine its impact (GRPFM-2 rated ‘D’), even though economic analysis of investment projects is, to some extent, conducted prior to selection and funding (PI-11 rated ‘C+’).
The City Government’s budget circular, issued by the Finance and Budget Department, does not contain information on gender and does not require or, at least, recommend KSUs to consider gender during budget formulation and preparation (GRPFM-3 rated ‘D’). The main PEFA indicator related to GRPFM-3 is PI-17, which has an overall score of ‘D+’.
Budget proposal documentation submitted to the City Council contains no specific policy priorities that promote gender equality (GRPFM-4 rated ‘D’); the absence of this information means that the public has no crucial data on measures to ensure gender equality. There is, however, a good dissemination (publication on the website) of key fiscal information to the public (PI-9 rated ‘A’); therefore, policy proposals and priorities on gender equality, if available, are likely to be published due to the transparency and accountability framework already in existence.
The assessment affirmed availability of sex-disaggregated performance information on service delivery in both planned and achieved outputs (GRPFM-5 is rated ‘C’). This compares better (than ‘D’) with the main PEFA indicator PI-8 “performance evaluation on service delivery” which was rated ‘A’.
The absence of gender-responsive budget proposal documentation implies that tracking of expenditure for gender equality is almost non-existent; this was the assessment finding (GRPFM-6 rated ‘D’). The absence of expenditure tracking for gender equality also led to non-reporting based on gender (GRPFM-7 rated ‘D’).
The Social Policy Department, Healthcare Department and Department for Family, Youth and Sports, evaluated the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery programs based on gender responsive indicators. The evaluation provides information on the performance of their programmes (GRPFM-8 rated ‘C’). This relatively compares with the main PEFA score of PI-8.4, rated ‘B’.
The City Council’s scrutiny of the budget is limited to information contained in the budget documentation; therefore, if there is no information on gender-responsive budgeting, gender equality, sex-disaggregated data, just to mention a few, the City Council has no chance to provide gender-responsive scrutiny of budget proposal (GRPFM-9 rated ‘D’). The rating for PI-18 is ‘C+’, which is higher than the gender score because of the absence of gender information in the budget proposal documentation.
Annex 5.3. Detailed assessment of gender-responsive budgeting
There are nine (9) PEFA gender-responsive PFM indicators in the Supplementary Framework for Assessing Gender-responsive Public Financial Management. These nine (9) indicators were designed to assess the processes and systems across the government’s budget cycle for the promotion and empowerment of women’s rights.