COLOMBO “:A meeting of the Women Parliamentarians Caucus was held in Parliament recently to discuss the importance of incorporating Gender-Responsive Budgeting into Sri Lanka’s national budget formulation process and to examine the challenges associated with its implementation.
The meeting was chaired by the Chairperson of the Caucus and Hon. Minister of Women and Child Affairs, Saroja Savithri Paulraj. Hon. Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya also participated in the discussion.
A key concern raised during the discussion was the lack of adequate data and indicators to accurately assess and measure women’s economic contributions within the budgetary process. Drawing on examples of approaches adopted in India and other countries, members of the Caucus underscored the need to identify and address existing systemic and technical gaps in Sri Lanka’s budgeting framework.
The Caucus also emphasized the importance of disaggregating data by gender in project reporting and strengthening digital data management systems to support such efforts. It was further noted that identifying relevant gender-related considerations at the initial stages of project design and implementation at the ministerial level would facilitate more effective project analysis, monitoring, and evaluation of outcomes.
The need to move away from existing traditional and time-consuming methods towards formal online systems and data-driven analytical tools was also emphasized.
The current progress and challenges in integrating Gender-Responsive Budgeting into Sri Lanka’s public financial policy were discussed in detail during the meeting.
It was also emphasized that such budgeting should not be limited to nominal percentages in documents, but that the need to establish a formal framework and data system to ensure it has a real and practical impact was also highlighted.
The Hon.Deputy Chairperson of Committees Hemalee Weerasekera, Hon. Deputy Minister Dr. Kaushalya Ariyarathne, Co-Vice Chairpersons of the Caucus, Hon. Members of Parliament Chamindrani Kiriella, Attorney at Law and Samanmalee Gunasinghe, Hon. Members of Parliament Thushari Jayasinghe, Attorney at Law, Krishnan Kaleichelvi, Sagarika Athauda ,Attorney at Law, Nilanthi Kottahachchi, Attorney at Law, Ambika Samivel and Lakmali Hemachandra, Attorney at Law, along with a group of officials from the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, also participated in the event.
