Gendering Public Finance Following Political Settlements: Insights and opportunities to further women’s rights and gender equality

​​​​The PRIO Centre on Gender, Peace and Security, NOREF and the Consortium for Gender, Security and Human Rights invite you to a public seminar on gendered analyses of public finance institutions and mechanisms in countries emerging from violent conflict.

​The management of public finance constitutes a critical means of supporting political settlements and of advancing more equitable, just and sustainable peace. Given the growing interest in peace agreement im​​plementation and mechanisms, the creation of a state with the capacity to manage public resources, to provide public goods and to respond to citizen demands is a crucial component (Boyce & O’Donnell, 2007). Yet, states and societies emerging from violent conflict tend to face particular challenges in establishing functioning public finance systems and addressing gendered structural inequities exacerbated by years of violent conflict.

Following a political settlement, reconstruction budgets are one important public finance vehicle for addressing structural gender inequities. Despite the influx of reconstruction aid following a political settlement, state planning and budgets processes continue to overlook and exclude women’s needs and ​rights (with estimates ranging from 1-6% as being allocated for gender equality programming).  The rapid rebuilding of national economic structures which characterises countries emerging from violent conflict tends to proceed without women’s participation. And it typically neglects both gender equality concerns and women’s needs, leaving many to struggle to cover their most basic needs despite the influx of international aid.

This diverse panel of experts will provide preliminary findings and insights from a recent knowledge-generating workshop on ho​​w to integrate gendered analyses of public finance institutions and mechanisms into planning for countries emerging from violent conflict. The panellists will each present briefly, before opening up for a wider discussion.

• James K. Boyce is an economist and expert on post-conflict public finance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His books include: Peace and the Public Purse: Economic Policies for Postwar Statebu​ilding; Investing in Peace: Aid and Conditionality after Civil Wars; and Economic Policy for Building Peace: The Lessons of El Salvador.
• Carol Cohn is an expert on gender, peace, conflict and security studies and on gendered institutions. She is director of the Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights. Her publications in the field of gender and security include a textbook, Women & Wars.
• Kade Finnoff is a development economist at the Azim Premji University in India. Her work focuses primarily on countries emerging from violent conflict, and she has written academic articles and policy-oriented reports on gender and public finance, gender budgeting of post-conflict development assistance, labour market policy, intimate partner violence, inequality and poverty.
• Janet Stotsky is an economist and visiting scholar in the International Monetary Fund’s Research Department where she led a recently completed project surveying and assessing gender budgeting ​​efforts around the world. She has an extensive publication record in public finance, gender and economics, and macroeconomics.

The seminar will be chaired by Torunn L. Tryggestad, Director of the PRIO Centre on Gender, ​Peace and Secur​ity.

​A light lunch will be ​​​served​​​.

​​Contact: Julie Marie Hansen, julhan@pri​o.org