Following the Money: South Africa Uses Gender Data to Budget Better for Women and Girls

What began with simple discussions with UN Women in 2024 on how to better cater to women and girls in the national budget, had snowballed into at least 16 ministries in South Africa working with the National Treasury to use gender data for gender-responsive budgets by the end of 2025.

Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) refers to the process of creating budgets that work for everyone, regardless of sex. It strives for a fairer distribution of resources, considering the specific needs and constraints faced by women and girls.

Before partnering with Women Count, South Africa had put some GRB systems in place, but had stalled at implementation.

“The main challenge was that departments lacked the capacity to effectively implement gender mainstreaming and align their budgets with gender-related priorities,” explains Viwe Sobudula, Director, Public Finance Division, National Treasury, South Africa.

“When we partnered with UN Women, we realized that we needed to begin with a research. … UN Women helped to provide a gender needs assessment that not only established an evidence base for why we needed GRB but also what exactly we needed to do.”

This gave rise to extensive capacity-building, co-designed and delivered with UN Women, targeting both finance and planning staff across ministries. They used a training manual customized with local content and practical exercises and case studies identifying gender-responsive programmes. They also engaged participants beyond gender focal points, improving understanding of GRB and setting the stage for its smooth implementation in 2025.

“Including experts from both the National Treasury and Statistics South Africa in the sessions made sure that the trainings used real data and were practical,” says Thivhulawi Mukwevho, Director of Research and Knowledge Management, Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.

This iterative learning approach provided valuable real-time feedback, which helped refine understanding and improve compliance during actual implementation.

“Inclusive training and training-of-trainers, helped to ensure a comprehensive understanding and practical application of GRB principles within departments, and enabled participants to further disseminate GRB knowledge and practices when they returned to their respective departments,” adds Mukwevho.

Official statistics from Statistics South Africa and collaborative surveys with UN Women played an essential role in setting priorities and tracking progress – and highlight slower-moving areas, such as women’s employment rates and women’s participation in government procurement.

To prepare for the first implementation of GRB in 11 pilot ministries, stakeholders used these gender data to conduct a needs assessment and identify priority areas such as health, education and women’s economic empowerment (WEE). This informed the selection of GRB programmes for implementation.

“Beyond setting the foundation for GRB in South Africa, the needs assessment undertaken with UN Women at the start of the process also assists us to comply with international standards,” says Sobudula.

“This type of report enables the Government and non-State actors to ‘follow the money’ and assess if budgets are delivering on policy commitments. … The gender budget statement gives us data and helps us to provide evidence and efficiencies in our budget.”

Prepared in 2025, South Africa’s first gender budget statement (GBS) assesses how the Government’s overall budget policy is addressing gender disparities in the country. It sets out Government gender equality priorities, observed gender gaps and inequalities and their associated trends, and the Government’s policies and proposed resource allocations to address these inequalities.

With a high focus on WEE, including in public procurement and employment in public sector, the 2025 GBS is the first step to having a fully gender-responsive budget. It reviews five government departments, with a view to identifying and addressing gender disparities in their budgets. These departments have since identified WEE initiatives for impact using available resources.

“Insights from the training have already begun to shift departmental mindsets,” says Mveleli Gqwede, Chief Director for Gender at South Africa’s Department of Public Works. “The Department has now fully integrated gender advisors in planning and budgeting. And for the second gender budget statement, we are using gender-disaggregated data from StatsSA and other sources to align procurement and planning with policy frameworks and provide capacity-building for women.”

While the 2025 process was not without challenges, it created a meaningful opportunity for Parliament and civil society to engage with the GBS and provide valuable inputs. According to Sobudula, the inclusion of ‘human endowment’ as the second pillar for the 2026 GBS emerged directly from these engagements.

The Government will also continue refining the pilot, supporting participating departments to strengthen monitoring, evaluation and auditing to inform roll-out.

And, according to Mukwevho, a promising shift in practice has already taken place: “Departments are now required to demonstrate gender responsiveness in their programmes and budgets, moving beyond rhetorical statements to concrete actions and investments.”

Per Kind Favour of APO

Africa Fact: In 1414 the Kenyan city of Malindi sent ambassadors to China carrying a gift that created a sensation at the Imperial Court. It was, of course, a giraffe.
Africa Fact: Africa is the world’s largest growing continent in terms of population.