Gender-Responsive Budgeting for Gender-Equal Societies: Financing Care, Climate Action, and Women’s Economic Empowerment
Period Think Tank has been selected to participate in the 3rd GRB Community of Practice, an international conference dedicated to strengthening collaboration between universities and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to build transformative, gender-equal societies.
Promoted by the Gender Budget Watchdog Network (GBWN), this year’s theme is “Gender-Responsive Budgeting for Gender-Equal Societies: Financing Care, Climate Action, and Women’s Economic Empowerment.”
We are here to present our action and research work on Intersectional Gender Budgeting.
While Gender-Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is gradually being adopted by a growing number of local governments in Italy, traditional frameworks often risk remaining bound to bureaucratic and binary logics, lacking the intersectional depth required to drive true systemic change.
In our presentation, we illustrate the innovative methodology developed by Period Think Tank to support Municipalities and Public Administrations in drafting genuinely transformative gender budgets.
- Moving beyond the binary paradigm. We go beyond standard institutional guidelines, shifting the focus of measurement toward actual societal impact.
- Frequence and data. We integrate strategic gender mainstreaming objectives with the principles of Data Feminism and data literacy.
- Flexibility and multi-level governance. We collaborate directly with diverse administrative bodies nationwide – ranging from municipalities of various sizes to provinces and inter-municipal unions -adapting our tools to each entity’s distinct competencies and local policy levers.
Our research is driven by a central question: how can we transform Gender Budgeting into an impactful tool for strategic planning and advocacy?
The answer lies in providing medium-to-long-term support to Public Administrations:
- Knowledge transfer. We do not simply draft a document, we conduct the process alongside civil servants, transferring methodologies and operational tools to them.
- Autonomy and equity. We empower administrations to autonomously manage impact-driven processes and democratize economic and fiscal data.
- Civic engagement. We actively involve civil society to foster genuine awareness of intersectionality and data feminism, ensuring true public accountability toward a more equitable society.