Una riflessione sul bilancio di genere in Italia (A critical appraisal of the Italian gender budget report)

Gender budgeting is a fundamental tool to reduce gender inequality by means of public policy and resource allocation processes. We examine the methodological features of the Italian annual gender budget report, which provides an assessment of the different impact of budgetary policy on women and men, with reference to several well-being domains. The report, envisaged by a recent reform of the Italian budget law, has been strongly improved in the last few years but many challenges remain ahead. Focusing on its critical issues and potential, we identify the need for a stronger involvement of all ministries so as to increase the awareness on the gender impacts of sectoral policy actions, in particular by means of improved technical expertise and implementation tools. Advancements in gender budgeting also require the adoption of a strategic framework, active engagement with civil society and systematic collection of gender disaggregated data. In addition, we suggest that gender budgeting should be linked with other innovative approaches to policy-making, such as well-being budgeting and SDGs budgeting, with a view to increasing the effectiveness of these tools for both ex ante and ex post public policy evaluation