1st Edition
Women in Public Finance Stories of Gender in Budgeting
Foreword
Mia Mottley
1 Introduction: Looking Inside Public Financial Management: Gender in Budgeting
Maja Bosnić and Manal Fouad
Part I: Women in PFM: Navigating the Boys’ Club
2 An Unconventional Path from Central Bank to Civil Society
Ana Patricia Muñoz
3 Finding Solace in Public Financial Management
Manal Fouad
4 Madame Budget-Programme
Amina Bambara Billa
5 From Slovenia to the World
Urška Zrinski
6 Limitless Skies and Endless Dreams: The Story of a Girl from the Mountains
Ayesha Javed
7 Resistance through PFM in Ukraine: An Interview with Oksana Tsiupa
Oksana Tsiupa with Maja Bosnić
Part II: Finding Ourselves in Gender Budgeting
8 Gender Budgeting: That Fire in my Belly
Lekha Chakraborty
9 Gender Budgeting in Me / Me in Gender Budgeting
Maja Bosnić
10 Public Finance Made Me a Feminist!
Hajar Ben Ameur
11 Beyond the Numbers: Making Budgets Work for Women and Girls
Ermira Lubani
Part III: From Margin to Mainstream: Gender in budgeting
12 Pioneering Gender Budgeting in Indonesia: An Interview with Maya Rostanty
Maya Rostanty with Maja Bosnić
13 Making the Personal Political: Activism, Academia, and Beyond
Angela O’Hagan
14 Roots, Resilience, and Reform: My Life in PFM!
Nordia Campbell
15 “Are you the Secretary? No, I’m the boss”
Catharina Schmitz
16 Demystifying Budgeting in and for Lebanon
Lamia Moubayed
Part IV: Reflections and Conversations
17 Looking Back, Moving Forward
Diane Elson
18 Budgeting for Equality from South Africa to Canada
Trinish Padayachee
19 Personalizing the Theory
Angela O’Hagan
20 Public Finance, Feminism, and Resistance: A Conversation with Marine Destrez, Sepideh Labani, Thokozile Madonko, Scherie Nicol, and Sureni Weerathunga
Marine Destrez, Sepideh Labani, Thokozile Madonko, Scherie Nicol, and Sureni Weerathunga, with Maja Bosnić
Afterword: Opening Essential Conversations
Maja Bosnić and Manal Fouad
Biography
Maja Bosnić is a senior economist with over two decades of experience in public and corporate financial management, specialising in gender and climate-responsive budgeting. She led one of the world's largest projects on gender budgeting, the Gender Budgeting in Ukraine Project, funded by the Swedish Government, from 2013 to 2020. She has collaborated with major international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group. She is the co-founder of Claim.Impact, a consultancy firm specialising in green and gender budgeting. She is a sought-after speaker on the intersection of gender and finance, delivering a highly viewed TED Talk at the TEDWomen Conference in Palm Springs in 2021, which has garnered close to 2 million views.
Manal Fouad is a former Assistant Director and Division Chief at the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, with over 30 years of experience in fiscal policy and capacity development in the public financial management and budgeting area around the world. She has numerous publications including as co-editor of the book Well Spent: How Strong Infrastructure Governance Can End Waste in Public Investment. She has represented the IMF in various international fora, including the G20 Infrastructure Working Group.
'This volume has been an eye opener for me at various levels. For instance, I was never aware of the existence of—and my belonging to—a privileged PFM “boys’ club”, despite the overwhelming evidence. Nor was I aware of the emergence of a “public finance sisterhood”, notwithstanding my professional association with quite a few formidable women, some of whom are among the authors of or mentioned in this volume. The personal stories—yes, they do matter—collected in this volume present a narrative about how the tide has been rising, perhaps still too slowly. To paraphrase the poet, even for PFM “the times they are a changing”. It was about time.' Marco Cangiano, Former assistant director of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department and currently an ODI research associate
'An extraordinary insight into the power and potential of gender responsive budgeting to transform not only policy outcomes, but the thinking and practice of those who design and manage public budgets. These stories need to be read by researchers, practitioners and policy-makers. The collection should inspire young women into a career that can make a massive difference in people’s lives and further discussion on how to make public finance space more inclusive.' Michaela Lavender, Managing Editor: Public Money & Management
'By giving voice to the many women leaders in public financial management from around the world, this book explores the many persistent challenges to making gender-budgeting a critical reality. The personal accounts featured also help identify key opportunities that can drive progress in both "women in public finance" and "public finance for women". Women (and men) in PFM should take note of this creative (and at times witty) approach to story-telling, a powerful tool for promoting behavioural change. Encouraged by the diverse experience, especially women in PFM are encouraged to add their voices to the 22 profiles published, so that the current thinning pipeline of female talent at higher levels in PFM soon becomes a myth.' Carmen Niethammer, Senior Gender Specialist at the European Investment Bank
'This book brings me to tears. Not just because each story is written so beautifully but it is rare that any economics' articles, texts or research tug at our hearts. Having spent most of my career promoting good public financial management and being a feminist, this book ranks in importance with Claudia Goldin's Nobel Economics Prize in 2023 which highlighted gender pay gaps in the labour market. The breadth of regions covered will resonate with women everywhere, as we see ourselves in these stories and relate to the policies that need tending. I congratulate the authors and hope this book gets disseminated widely and talked about for years to come.' Therese Turner-Jones, Former IMF Staff, CARTAC Coordinator, and Interamerican-Bank General Manager for the Caribbean
