Too much information, or too little? – in gender budgeting

Too much information, or too little? – in gender budgeting

Gender budgeting is often used for mapping the distribution of resources in an organization. The principle is at first glance quite simple: how much money goes to which post in the budget, and how many women/men is taking part of this. 

In practice it’s more difficult. When reviewing, we also need to ask ourselves: is each and one participant getting equal access to the resources, and this will be the start of a very extensive measuring project, taking a lot of both energy and time for the employees. 

We suggest a different entrance: instead of starting by producing all statistics needed to get a full picture, start with what you have. It will not be a full-scale picture of resource distribution, but the “sample”-method will allow you to dig deeper in what you see, and understand it more closely. The Equality Journey is a very good tool to help you understand what you see and to help complementing it with other information that can help you on your way forward. And if this is not enough, identify the exact information you need and investigate that, precisely.

What we want to say is: don’t worry if you do not have or cannot get a complete detailed image of resource distribution in you organization. What matters is how you use the information you have. It’s better to have a rough map and a well working compass, than to have a detailed map but not being able to find the direction! 

Christina Ahlzén, Medida