The first gender-responsive budgeting experience of the federal government dates back to 1996, when the recently created mechanism for the advancement of women -the National Commission on Women (CONMUJER)- set out to oversee the use of those resources, an effort that continued until 1998.
In 1997, the subcommission on the “Earmarked Federal Budget”, which was part of the then Commission on Gender Equity (CEG) of the Chamber of Deputies, was also created. This initiative was the result of a series of agreements reached at the National Assembly of Women for the Transition to Democracy (held in October 1996) and the joint work done by the CEG’s women legislators and civil society organizations working for gender equality, who received advice from several national and international women experts and academics.
In 2003, the Commission on Equity and Gender of the Chamber of Deputies promoted the allocation of resources earmarked for gender equality, while the Federal Executive Power, through the National Women’s Institute (INMUJERES) promoted the institutionalization of the gender perspective in the legal-normative framework of the public budget and budget programmes.
In 2004, the National Women’s Institute (INMUJERES) developed a methodological guide to incorporate the gender perspective in the budgets of institutions of the federal public administration. However, back then that guide was not considered a formal instrument for the formulation of the budget and it was excluded from the applicable regulations.
In 2006, the Federal Law on Budgeting and Fiscal Responsibility (LFPRH) was passed. One of the provisions on the budgeting of this law establishes the obligation to […ensure that the administration of federal public resources is based on legality, honesty, efficiency, efficacy, economy, rationality, austerity, transparency, control, accountability, and gender equality criteria]. That same year, the Decree on the Federation’s Expenditure Budget (PEF 2006) included, for the first time, the so-called Annex 19G, “Expenditures of programmes incorporating the gender perspective”.
Since 2008, the PEF has included a Cross-Cutting Annex entitled “Expenditures for equality between women and men”. Said Annex includes the description of resources earmarked for the promotion of gender equality disaggregated by Budget Programmes and Areas.
The main legislative achievements for the incorporation of the gender perspective in budget programmes and the PEF were the result of amendments to the Planning Law (LP) and the LFPRH that took place in 2011 and 2018 respectively. Thus, the development planning guiding principles described in the Planning Law now include, among others, the principle of gender equality between women and men and the federal public administration’s obligation to plan and execute its actions with a gender perspective. The LFPRH, on the other hand, adopted a fundamental criterion: the incorporation of the gender perspective in all the programming, budgeting, approval, execution, control, and evaluation processes that involve federal revenue and expenditures, in addition to the express obligation to include in the annual decrees on the federation’s expenditure budget the above-mentioned Cross-Cutting Annex on Gender Equality.
Another major achievement was the development of tools to influence the formulation of federal budgeting programmes. An example of these tools are the Guidelines for the incorporation of the gender perspective in the Rules of Operation of federal budget programmes, which were published in the Federal Official Daily Gazette in 2016.
Another important aspect of the Mexican experience related to budget oversight is the publication of information on the execution of the programmes and actions described in the Annex Expenditure for Equality between women and men, which is prepared by the National Women’s Institute in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance. The latter also compiles valuable information in the area of accountability made public through the Report on the Public Account submitted to the Chamber of Deputies for its review and oversight.