IGNOU MGSE-002 Solved Assignment 2022-23 Free PDF : MGSE-002 Solved Assignment 2022 , MGSE-002 Solved Assignment 2022-23, MGSE-002 Assignment 2022-23, MGSE-002 Assignment, IGNOU Assignments 2022-23- Gandhi National Open University had recently uploaded the assignments of the present session for MEG Programme for the year 2022-23. Students are recommended to download their Assignments from this webpage itself.

PART-A

1. List benefits of Gender Budgeting.

Ans. Gender budgeting is a strategy to achieve equality between women and men by focusing on how public resources are collected and spent. ‘Gender budgeting is an approach to budgeting that can improve it, when fiscal policies and administrative procedures are structured to address gender inequality … When properly done, one can say that gender budgeting is good budgeting’ (Stotsky, 2016) The Council of Europe defines gender budgeting as a ‘gender based assessment of budgets incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process and restructuring revenues and expenditures in order to promote gender equality Gender budgeting has a firm basis in the EU commitment to gender mainstreaming expressed in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union have repeatedly called on the Member States to develop and implement gender budgeting. At EU level, the European Parliament is ultimately responsible for the EU budget and the European Commission Directorate-General for Budget for its execution. EU Member States’ parliaments and public administrations are responsible for their national and subnational budget cycles. Gender budgeting at central government level. Introducing gender budgeting at central government level is important because budgetary decisions on both revenue and expenditure are made at this level. For practical examples on how gender budgeting has been integrated at central government level, please see the Austrian example. Gender budgeting at regional and local government levels. Regional and local governments’ proximity to people’s everyday lives means there is potential to respond more directly to women’s and men’s needs when it comes to public policy and service delivery. At these levels, there is great potential to use participatory gender budgeting approaches involving the local population. For a practical Example, please see the approach applied in Andalusia, Spain. Accountability. Since an important part of gender budgeting is analysing the impact of budgets on women and men, it is also considered to be an important part of monitoring how the budget is working towards meeting gender equality goals in a country. Researchers therefore consider gender budgeting to be ‘a mechanism for establishing whether a Government’s gender equality commitments translate into budgetary commitments’. Applying gender budgeting will therefore make governments accountable for their gender policy commitments. Here civil society and the media play a crucial role in monitoring and holding the government accountable for their budgets. The Women’s Budget Group in the United Kingdom is a good example of this. Transparency. If applied in a systematic manner, gender budgeting can contribute to increasing participation in the budget process and thereby also increase transparency. Increased participation in the budget process can be achieved by establishing a practice of public consultation and participation in budget preparation, or of public participation in monitoring the budget. Performance and results orientation. Results-based budgeting brings strategic planning and public finance management closer together by linking policy targets and objectives more closely with budgets. This is done by defining targets, objectives and activities and establishing a functioning monitoring system based on performance indicators to measure progress towards reaching the objectives. A true performance-oriented approach only happens when gender budgeting is integrated in performance budgeting. This is because gender budgeting provides evidence on performance from gender perspectives that will promote the most effective and efficient allocation of resources and implementation of policies. Effectiveness. Gender budget analysis contributes to improved information on the potentially different situations and needs of women and men, as well as on distributional effects and the impact of resources on women and men. Thus, gender budgeting provides the basis for better and more evidence-based decision making. This in turn contributes to ensuring that public funds are being used more effectively.

2. What is the user fee? Do you think the collection of user fees harms the life of women? Substantiate your argument with a suitable example.

Ans. Over the past decade, an increasing number of low- and middle-income countries have reduced or removed user fees for pregnant women and/or children under five as a strategy to achieve universal health coverage. Despite the large number of studies (including meta-analyses and systematic reviews) that have shown this strategy’s positive effects impact on health-related indicators, the repercussions on women’s empowerment or gender equality has been overlooked in the literature. The aim of this study is to systematically review the evidence on the association between user fee policies in low- and middle-income countries and women’s empowerment. A systematic scoping review was conducted. Two reviewers conducted the database search in six health-focused databases (Pubmed, CAB Abstracts, Embase, Medline, Global Health, EBM Reviews) using English key words. The database search was conducted on February 20, 2020, with no publication date limitation. Qualitative analysis of the included articles was conducted using a thematic analysis approach. The material was organized based on the Gender at Work analytical framework. Out of the 206 initial records, nine articles were included in the review. The study settings include three low-income countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Sierra Leone) and two lower-middle countries (Kenya, India). Four of them examine a direct association between user fee policies and women’s empowerment, while the others address this issue indirectly —mostly by examining gender equality or women’s decision-making in the context of free healthcare. The evidence suggests that user fee removal contributes to improving women’s capability to make health decisions through different mechanisms, but that the impact is limited. In the context of free healthcare, women’s healthcare decision-making power remains undermined because of social norms that are prevalent in the household, the community and the healthcare centers. In addition, women continue to endure limited access to and control over resources (mainly education, information and economic resources) User fee removal policies alone are not enough to improve women’s healthcare decision-making power. Comprehensive and multi-sectoral approaches are needed to bring sustainable change regarding women’s empowerment. A focus on “gender equitable access to healthcare” is needed to reconcile women’s empowerment and the efforts to achieve universal health coverage. Chieving gender equality and empowering women and girls, as well as achieving universal health coverage (UHC) are part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Over the past decade, there has been growing international recognition that health, gender equality, women’s empowerment and sustainable development are intricately related. While the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment (MDG 3) focused on gender parity in education and reducing maternal mortality (MDG 5), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) address gender equality not only as a stand-alone goal (SDG 5), but as a cross-cutting development issue. In 2030 Agenda, gender equality is now considered essential to achieve other goals, including those related to poverty, nutrition, employment and health. Gender inequalities have been recognized as powerful determinants of health and well-being and, as such, should be targeted in the efforts to increase access to healthcare. This problem is particularly salient in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where barriers to healthcare access are prioritized for intervention on the road to Universal Health Coverage (UHC). User fee reduction or abolition policies are among the most prominent strategies to achieve UHC in LMICs. Several systematic reviews have shown their effectiveness in increasing access to preventive and curative healthcare services among the targeted population, generally children under 5 years of age and pregnant women. Removing user fees also changes treatment-seeking practices by decreasing self-medication and traditional treatments, by increasing the number of visits to health centers and decreasing delay in seeking treatment. Evidence suggests that these policies are associated with a reduction in neonatal, maternal and child mortality. For these reasons, a growing number of LMICs have partially or completely removed user fees for pregnant women and/or for children under five. According to the World Bank, 46 of the 54 African countries have taken measures to that end since the turn of the Millennium. This is a major reorientation of health policies. User fee abolition initiatives overturn the cost recovery system which imposed direct payment for healthcare in most sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries following the Bamako Initiative in 1986.

3. Discuss Women’s Component Plan. 

Ans. The 9th and 10th Five Year Plan of Government of India, had important objectives for women; it envisaged gender mainstreaming and also had a new component Women Component Plan (WCP), the objective of which being women empowerment by improving the status of women in society and it was for the first time in history, empowerment of women was adopted as an objective in the Five year Plans. Kerala introduced Women’s Component Plan (WCP) at the Local Self Government (LSG) level. In Kerala, during the 9th Five Year Plan, it was instructed that allocation of 10 percent of Plan outlays for all departments should be mandatorily earmarked for women-specific projects. The key objective of WCP is to make sure that the basic needs of women got acknowledged, the focus was on increasing the activities that improved the income of women and also on activities that will ensure improvement in status of women, thus there was a conscious effort to mainstream gender in local planning process.

The guidelines for WCP in Kerala have given clear instructions regarding the type of projects to be included under WCP. These include:

(1) Projects like roads, latrines, electrification, and smokeless chullahs which have women and men both as beneficiaries need not to be included in WCP. However District Panchayats and Corporations can include housing schemes under WCP for women headed families which have no adult males.

(2) Cultivation of vegetables, goat rearing, poultry etc. should be excluded from WCP. Funds required for food and nutrition programme of Anganwadis and preprimary education programme need not to be included under WCP. Construction of Anganwadi buildings which have no separate provisions for organizing meetings of women need not be included under WCP.

(3) As far as possible, WCP projects should be organized and implemented through SHGs of women, neighborhood groups and other groups and cooperative societies. Financial assistance for thrift and credit schemes of BPL families, which are nominated by Kudumbashree, self-help group and neighborhood groups are to be included under WCP.

(4) Special consideration should be given for projects that aim at development of infrastructure facility, marketing facility and entrepreneurship programme for development of micro enterprises owned by women under WCP.

(5) Cottage industries for women promoted by the Industries Department can be given financial assistance under WCP, subject to prevailing norms.

(6) Gram panchayats and municipalities can take up projects for comprehensive study of status of women in their respective areas under WCP.

4. Why do we need to do gender budgeting at the Gram Panchayat level? Explain with an
example. 

Ans. In recent times, governments, both in the developed and developing countries, have engaged in gender budget analysis as part of the process of mainstreaming gender in their policies and programs impelled by the differential impact of government budgets on women and men. Expressions like “gender-sensitive budget,” “gender-responsive budget,” “gender budgets,” “women’s budget,” and “women’s budget statements” are often used to describe the process (Budlender, Sharp, & Kerry, 1998, p. 5). Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is one of the ways by which governments demonstrate their commitment to gender equality by making suitable allocations in the budgets to bridge the gender gap. According to Budlender, GRB is “a form of policy analysis from a gender perspective.” More than the numbers in the budget, the focus is “on the policy and programmes underlying those numbers” and the possible results following implementation (Budlender, 2004, p. 4). It suggests that all parts of the budget take account of the needs and interests of all sections of the citizenry. Although this remains the ultimate goal, the pathway to achieving it necessarily involves addressing gaps in allocations and expenditures by investing in projects meant for women in the short to medium term because they experience greater inequality. This article looks at the initiatives in GRB adopted by the state of Kerala at the local level by taking up the case of a resource-deficient village panchayat. After a brief review of the history of GRB and its procedures, the article describes the Indian experience particularly since the Ninth Five-Year Plan. The article then proceeds to discuss the context of participatory planning at the local level in Kerala in the background of which GRB first emerged in the state. The sections that follow include a brief review of literature, objectives of the study, methodology, methods, taxonomy, analysis of the data collected, and a conclusion. The first country to start gender budgeting was Australia, way back in 1984. It appeared in the form of Women Budget Statements (WBSs) outlining the impact of the annual budget on gender equality. In 1995, South Africa and Philippines followed suit. Instead of a separate budget for women, South Africa went for the examination of the whole budget to know how differentially it had affected women and men (Budlender, 1999). It was a two-pronged initiative from within and outside government (Commonwealth Secretariat, 1999; Elson, 2004). In Philippines, 5% of the budget of all national-level agencies was mandatorily to be allocated for gender and development. This was later extended to other parts of government, including the local bodies. After some years, they realized the folly of sticking to the 5% approach to GRB and began asking questions about the remaining 95% of the budget. In the South African, Tanzanian, and Ugandan examples, nongovernmental organization (NGO) groups and governments worked together. Similar experiences can be seen in Latin America (Elson, 2004; Kapungu, 2008). Albania has a system of appointing gender equality employees in every line ministry who collect and analyze “data, particularly sex-disaggregated data,” and conduct “gender analysis to inform local policy development” (Kristin, Xhelo, & Wittberger, 2012, p. 19). In Italy, GRB was started at the local government level, which was later.

PART- B

1. Explain gender budgeting initiatives of Australia and South Africa.

Ans. South Africa has ratified several international instruments that impose an obligation on the country to allocate sufficient budgetary resources to realise women’s rights. Gender budgeting has been recognised as a means through which states can implement this obligation. South Africa was the first African country to have adopted gender budgeting initiatives and despite being successful in the initial years, the initiatives phased out and did not become integral to the budgeting process. In this article, I propose sustainable gender budgeting initiatives for a better realisation of women’s rights in South Africa. While the article highlights the challenges, I put forward recommsendations for integrating gender budgeting in the national budgeting process.

2. Explain the Budget making process of the Union budget in India with suitable examples. 

Ans. NEW DELHI: Budget is the annual financial statement of a government which lays out fiscal roadmap for the country for the next one year. It is prepared by the ministry of finance in consultation with Niti Aayog and other concerned ministries. The Budget division of the department of economic affairs (DEA) in the finance ministry is the nodal body responsible for producing the Budget. Budget-making process starts in August-September, that is, about six months prior to its date of presentation. It needs to be passed by both houses of Parliament before beginning of the financial year, that is, April 1. A circular is issued to all ministries, states, Union territories, autonomous bodies by the finance ministry asking them to prepare estimates for the coming year. The circular comprises skeleton forms along with requisite guidelines based on which ministries present their demands. Apart from providing their estimates, the ministries also give a detail of their revenues and expenditures in the past year

3. Explain Expenditure tools with examples. 

Ans. Public expenditure is spending made by the government of a country on collective needs and wants, such as pension, provisions (which includes education, healthcare and housing), security, infrastructure, etc. Until the 19th century, public expenditure was limited as laissez faire philosophies believed that money left in private hands could bring better returns. In the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes argued the role of public expenditure in determining levels of income and distribution in the economy. Since then, government expenditures has shown an increasing trend. Sources of government revenue include taxes, and non-tax revenues.

In the 17th and the 18th centuries, public expenditure was considered a wastage of money. Thinkers believed government should stay with their traditional functions of spending on defense and maintaining law and order. Several theories of taxation exist in public economics. Governments at all levels (national, regional and local) need to raise revenue from a variety of sources to finance public-sector expenditures. The details of taxation are guided by two principles: who will benefit, and who can pay. Public expenditure means the expenditure on the developmental and non-developmental activity such as construction of roadways and dams, and other activity.

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