Lagos: Finance experts have stated that the government should adopt gender responsive budgeting which seeks to measure the gaps between policy commitments with respect to human rights and women's rights instruments for better outcomes of policies.

Azuka Menkiti, a faculty member of the Centre for Budget & Policy Advocacy, ActionAid Nigeria, said inequalities exist between men and women and in recognition of unequal gender relations that put women in a subordinated position, various declarations and conventions have been adopted to redress the situation.

According to her, Gender Aware Policy Appraisals (GAPA), seeks to find out how policies and programmes reflect women's and men's different needs and in what ways they are likely to increase or reduce gender inequalities, Sex-disaggregated Public Expenditure Benefit Incidence Analyses, estimates the distribution of budget resources among males and females.

Husseni Abdu, country manager of ActionAid said all significant changes in human history have been propelled by the struggle of people who have directly or indirectly been disempowered in the socio-economic and political construct of society. "It is in this context that ELBAG seeks to build information and education that empowers citizens to take action and create the desired change. This engagement should be seen as a process of empowering citizens to demand and claim their rights" he said.

"We at ActionAid understand that the structural constraints that shape the everyday life of poor people are found at all levels of decision making, therefore we continue to strive to link these policy environments and ensure that the concerns of people are reflected in major decisions. With the market driven nature of globalisation, ELBAG provides a veritable tool not just for understanding its dynamics, but also how to critically engage it in the interest of the poor" he said.

Monitoring National Budgets

Bimbola Akinwunmi, in a presentation at the training said citizens should also monitor the National budget for better participation and for them to be in an enlightened position to challenge corruption.

"There are three categories of budget monitors, beside specific persons and institutions required by the laws of the country to monitor the budget. These are the executives, the legislature and the citizens. Other actors carrying out public expenditure monitoring in Nigeria include the pressure groups".

According to her, citizens can do this through sourcing for the budget and documents on the budget; the speech of the president, governor or chairman, categorising budget votes into sectors and determining the priorities of government and investigating how and when monies are being released for implementation of projects. "They can also observe budget implementation by documenting the name of contractor, nature of project, where project is located, when project started, progress report on project and when project is completed and analyse the level of compliance or deviation from budget votes based on observations already made".

Information on budgets can be sourced from the Ministry/ department of Finance, Office of Executive Head of Government, Office of Finance and Appropriation Committee of the legislature, Ministry of information, Federal Office of Statistics, Government Printers, Public Libraries, University Libraries, Internet & Research Centres including NGOs with such facility and the media especially newspapers and magazines among others.

According to Mr. Abdu, access to these information, which is the ability of the citizens to obtain budget related information from the government and public authorities, would aid their access to participation and help citizens provide informed, timely and meaningful input and influence policies (budget) from formulation to implementation and review stages and access to justice.

Nigeria's Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan on April 22, signed into law a 4.6 trillion naira budget for 2010. The budget increases expenditure by 50 percent from last year as Nigeria tries to spend its way out of a downturn, but it also risks pushing the OPEC member to a budget deficit of more than 5 percent.

Analysts have welcomed the government's move to boost the economy but cautioned the quality of spending would be key, given Nigeria's reputation for inefficient budget implementation. They also believe that the poor level of execution of previous budgets should not be discounted.

Omar Oosman Jobe, the policy and budget analyst, Pro Poor Advocacy Group, Gambia said he hopes to be better positioned to address budget related issues. "Our Company, as well as some other non governmental organisation, have built a strong relationship with the National Assembly over there. I have come to share what we do in the Gambia, the National Assembly and community based assessment issues and also to learn from others. I would be better empowered in this field when I get back".

ELBAG is an attempt by ActionAid to demonstrate change in action, a change that is premised on mobilizing active agencies for the purpose of social transformation. Governance as an arena where policy is formulated, legitimized and implemented must bear the hallmark of participation and social justice driven by strong principles of democratic allocation and management collective resources.