Skopje, 29 September 2023 (MIA) – Gender-responsive budgeting is my mission, years of dedicated work that I believe will make a difference, said Minister of Labor and Social Policy, Jovanka Trenchevska, in her address at the meeting of the Working Group on women’s economic empowerment in the Western Balkans, organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Friends of Europe. 

According to a press release from the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the goal of the working group is to identify the challenges faced by women in the context of improved economic empowerment in the Western Balkans. This is the fourth meeting of the Group, and it is organized in cooperation with the Ministry.

“Gender-responsive budgeting is a topic on which I’ve been working with dedication since 2007. At that time this concept was completely unknown in our society, which is why there was a need to adopt good practices from other countries and, through dedicated work, insert them or impose them on our political scene so that we can achieve some kind of progress on the issue,” said Minister Trenchevska.

At the meeting, Trenchevska pointed to the adoption of the first Gender-responsive Budgeting Strategy in 2012 and noted that the Ministry of Finance changed the budget instructions for 2013 and 2014 for the first time, instructing three ministries and the Employment Agency of North Macedonia to select a program for gender analysis and developing relevant gender indicators for the monitoring of the impact of the programs on women and men.

Trenchevska drew a comparison between the social context in which she began her fight for gender-responsive budgeting and the current societal situation.

“The social environment when I started working on this topic and today, from the perspective of what we really achieved as activists and officials, is very different. I am proud of the fact we opened the Resource Center for Gender Responsive Policymaking and Budgeting in March last year. There are only two others of its kind in the world. The third one was established by our Ministry, and in the period to come we will work to ensure it grows into a regional center,” said Trenchevska.

The Minister noted that the goal of the opening of the center is the strengthening of the administration’s capacities in terms of gender equality and gender-responsive budgeting.

Photo: Ministry of Labor and Social Policy