Africa’s macroeconomic landscape is a significant shaper of gender equality and women's empowerment on the continent. The pandemic and other crises have hit African economies hard, with many African governments focusing on debt repayment and fiscal consolidation, limiting investment in social services that are critical for gender equality and women’s rights.
Recent research by Christian Aid shows that more and more countries are once again facing debt crises. The report stated that 34 African countries now spent more on external debt repayments than on social services like on health and education.
In response to these debt pressures, and under the influence of powerful international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), many countries are now implementing austerity measures, such as restricting public wage bills that nurses and teachers rely on and cutting back on social protection measures, whilst also increasing consumption taxes that especially hit those who can afford it the least.
Global analysis demonstrates that 94 developing countries are implementing austerity measures that undermine the capacity of governments to fulfil their human rights obligations and tackle gender inequality, including their capacity to provide education, healthcare, social protection and other critical public services. This trend gained momentum in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. The number of countries slashing their budgets is expected to rise through 2025.
In every country in the world, decisions on public spending impact women and men differently, reflecting differing needs for various public services. Women are also disproportionately affected by austerity measures compared to men as women undertake the vast majority of unpaid care work and domestic labour.
Yet, it's still rare for governments to systematically consider how their public expenditure policies might affect women and men differently, especially when they feel it is necessary to cut spending.
Over the last two years, Christian Aid has been working to foster gender-just macroeconomic policymaking across Africa. In this programme, we have worked with local partners and feminist advocates to demystify neoliberal economic models that prioritise fiscal austerity over social equity.
To understand the gendered dimensions of macroeconomic policies in Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe, we worked with partners to engage with grassroots women who are affected by these policies, as well as supporting research by national civil society organisations.
This article is the second in a series delving deeper into this work. The focus of this article is an examination of how civil society in Burkina Faso has supported government initiatives to implement gender-responsive budgeting measures.
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The macroeconomic policy environment for gender equality in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso's commitment to implementing gender - responsive budgeting (GRB) by 2025 represents a crucial step towards addressing gender inequalities. Since 2019 the institutionalisation of gender in Burkina has taken a new turn.
Every ministry and institution is required to integrate the gender dimension into its annual budgets, ensuring implementation and reporting on progress. However, the lived reality of Burkinabe women reveals a complex interplay between conflict, neoclassical economic policymaking, and gender disparities.
Like many countries in the Sahel region, Burkina Faso faces significant macroeconomic policy challenges that disproportionately impact women and girls. The ongoing security crisis has exacerbated existing economic challenges and deepened gender inequalities. Increased military spending due to the conflict has diverted resources away from critical socio-economic sectors such as health, education, agriculture and economic empowerment—areas essential for advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment.
The role of the IMF in Burkina Faso’s economic policies
Like many countries across Africa, the development of current macroeconomic policies in Burkina Faso are often influenced by advice from the IMF and the World Bank. In Burkina Faso, the IMF has supported the government's GRB initiative and is stressing ‘the importance of scaling up social spending and strengthening social protection’, including resuming targeted cash transfers to communities affected by the conflict.
At the same time, under an IMF loan programme, the government is undertaking a long-term plan to reduce the public wage bill and has committed to the IMF not to grant any new public wage agreements that could impact the overall size of the public wage bill.
These measures could not only directly disproportionately impact women who make up the majority of public health workers and teachers affected by these measures, but they also risk weakening the delivery of public services that are critical to reducing gender inequality over the long term.
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The IMF has also strongly recommended that Burkina Faso better 'targets' social protection measures, so only those most in need benefit from these measures when public spending is so constrained. Yet, in a country like Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world, the IMF is missing the fact that even Burkina's 'middle class is vulnerable to economic shocks and requires protections, meaning that more spending that focuses on financing critical public services overall is required, not less.
The implementation of GRB in Burkina Faso presents an opportunity to challenge traditional gender-blind macroeconomic thinking and ensure that fiscal policies actively promote gender equality. To be truly effective, this initiative must extend beyond mere budget allocations; it requires a comprehensive gender analysis of fiscal policies, especially cutbacks, as well as taxation and public service delivery. Additionally, it must address the unique challenges posed by the security crisis and its implications for women's economic security and empowerment. This approach aligns with global efforts to integrate gender considerations into all aspects of economic policymaking.
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Women’s lived realities in Burkina Faso
The experiences of Burkinabe women, as shared in community engagements, highlight significant challenges in accessing basic services. Women reported major difficulties in accessing basic services like healthcare, agricultural support, education opportunities, and water as well as government initiatives in areas such as economic empowerment. Other challenges identified in relation to public services included mining, security concerns, livestock management, and social action.
In group discussions, the women used Venn diagrams to demonstrate the magnitude of these issues and the ways in which they impacted on their families. All issues raised by the women were seen to be issues of great magnitude across all sectors of development.
Health and agriculture access challenges
In terms of health care access, women expressed frustration over limited facilities and shortages of medical supplies in health facilities. They also highlighted frequent water shortages during dry seasons that forced them to rely on unsafe sources of water.
Regarding agriculture, women reported difficulties in accessing promised subsidies which in turn hindered their ability to sustain farming activities—an essential source of livelihood.
Security context and its impact on public spending
The current security context also emerged as a significant concern among participants, as it has further shifted government resources to addressing security issues, while neglecting other critical sectors such as gender equality and health care.
'We have noted shrinking space for civil society to meaningfully participate in the annual budget development and planning processes, the strategic space for economic decision-making.'
- Madam C, a women's rights leader in Burkina Faso.
The need for inclusive GRB policy development
Many women reported that they were unaware that the government is prioritising GRB - many had never heard of the concept. This finding underscores the urgent need for an inclusive GRB policy development process that actively engages women’s voices.
Currently, only three out of seventeen members on a parliamentary Commission examining finance laws are women—a reflection of the broader issue that women continue to be sidelined and systematically marginalised in economic decision-making. While Burkina Faso has made commendable strides in adopting GRB frameworks, meaningful implementation remains a challenge. The disconnect between policy commitments and women's lived realities underscores the urgent need to translate GRB commitments into action that improves women’s lives in practice.
Strengthening gender-responsive budgeting in Burkina Faso
Meaningful gender-responsive budgeting in Burkina Faso means increasing and sustaining overall investments in women's wellbeing, protection, and empowerment programmes while ensuring that women not only benefit from these services without discrimination, but that they actively aim to reduce and redistribute care work burdens. Enhancing transparency, accountability and citizen participation in Burkina Faso's budgetary processes is also essential, including women’s meaningful participation.
Most importantly, introducing an official act that legally obliges all ministries to comply with established GRB frameworks and is drafted through extensive consultations with women’s communities will significantly improve the lived realities of Burkinabe women.
While there appears to be strong compliance among government ministries in adopting existing GRB frameworks officially, there is a risk of this becoming a tick-box exercise to fulfil a complicated matrix of requirements by a faceless bureaucracy that has been designed without the participation of women at the sharp end of public budgeting decisions. Meaningful implementation therefore remains challenging, mainly due to social, cultural, and political dynamics including limited capacity within the government ministries such as the ministry of finance, gender etc. Another challenge surrounds access to timely and accurate information for citizens, especially women, to meaningfully engage with the GBR policy and hold duty bearers accountable.
Dialogues with communities demonstrate that effective execution requires not only capturing sex-disaggregated data on beneficiaries across various categories of public expenditure but also understanding the different roles that women and men play in the economy more broadly. This includes analysing the differential impact of tax policy reforms between women, men and marginalised communities, because governments need to know if their tax policies might be placing additional burdens on women while their expenditure policy tries to lighten this load.
Amid an incredibly constrained fiscal environment overall, it’s absolutely critical that the government does not only take note of when they spend money in a way that may benefit women but also measure and address the ways in which public expenditure constraints and cuts may disproportionately impact women’s wellbeing. Burkina Faso can move towards a more equitable economic landscape that truly reflects the needs and realities of its women citizens, even in the face of conflict and economic challenges
