Purpose

The purpose of the gender responsive PFM assessment is to gather information on the budgeting and reporting systems of the Government of Sierra Leone to ascertain the extent to which PFM responds to the needs of gender (male and female) and other marginalised groups such as people with physical and/or mental disabilities.

This is one of the first central government gender responsive PFM assessment in English speaking Africa. The findings of this assessment will feed into the new PFM reform strategy that succeeds the latest which expired in 2021.

The assessment team used the Supplementary Framework for Assessing Gender Responsive Public Financial Management published by the PEFA Secretariat in January 2020. The field work was carried out at the same time the main PEFA assessment was conducted in order to maximise the use of time and also reduce the level of interaction with government staff due to their busy schedule. The same assessment team for the standard PEFA was used to conduct the GRPFM assessment. Furthermore, some of the information gathered during the main PEFA assessment was used to assess the GRPFM; additional data was also gathered where necessary.

The lead central government agency on gender responsive PFM is the Ministry of Finance but the new Ministry of Gender and Children Protection created under the new Government appears to be championing the course, albeit with little success as lack of technical capacity is hampering progress. Currently, there is no development partner support in this area.

The GRPFM report (annexed to the main PEFA report) was subjected to the same PEFA Check requirements in terms of oversight arrangements, peer review and quality assurance. The coverage of the gender assessment is the same as that of the main PEFA assessment, i.e., FYs 2018, 2019, 2020, with a cut-off date of September 2021. The GRPFM assessment was funded by the European Union.

Background

The Government of Sierra Leone recognizes the importance of mainstreaming gender into the public financial management framework for purposes of ensuring gender equality. It is on this background that it has passed into law a number of legislations and developed policies and strategies for gender re. In spite of this, the government is yet to include these procedures and processes into the entire budget cycle. Below is a list of laws, policies and strategies that support gender equality. It appears government’s focus in on how to strengthen and consolidate the basic PFM issues such as fiscal discipline beforehand.