Conference on state budgets: a key factor in real equality between women and men

Athens (Greece), 5-6 May 2009

Speech by Britt-Marie Lövgren, Vice-chair of the Committee on Social Cohesion

Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe

Gender budgeting for gender equality

Mr Chairman, ministers, delegates of the conference.

I would like to start by thanking you for this opportunity to speak about the important matters concerning gender equality. I am the Rapporteur for equality issues of the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, an elected assembly bringing together local and regional authorities from 47 countries, representing more than 200 000 territorial communities of Europe.

There is a growing awareness today that we cannot achieve true equality in our society without addressing the issue of gender equality. In this respect, the Congress has been calling, in many of its legal texts, for the removal of obstacles to women’s participation in political life. We have also been calling for raising awareness of the importance of gender mainstreaming.

The Congress is involved in almost every field of activities of the Council of Europe Steering Committee for  Equality between Women and Men, where I am an observer for the Congress, including action against trafficking in human beings, combating violence against women, gender mainstreaming, and women in politics and decision-making. We participated in the Council of Europe campaigns to combat violence against women, including domestic violence and against trafficking in human beings and adopted a Declaration on action to combat human trafficking.

If we are to achieve a society based on equality, it is essential that local and regional governments take the gender dimension fully into account in their policies and their practices. And in today's and tomorrow's world, the real equality of women and men is also key to our economic and social success - not just at European or national levels,but also in our regions, towns and local communities.

 

Many international agreements, conventions and declarations have been made to promote gender equality. In many Council of Europe member states there is de jure but not de facto gender equality. It is undeniable that women and men are still not treated equally and that gender policies, methods and strategies used across member states have not yet been implemented to their ful potential. Gender inequality is a problem and the process towards gender equality is slow. If we want to be really serious about gender equality, the process needs to be speeded up and we need sustainable changes. It is in everyday life that gender equality is created – or inequality is maintained. Through their closeness to the citizens local and regional authorities can contribute directly to decisions which promote gender equality and influence people’s everyday life.

When you search the Internet for information about gender budgeting pretty soon you reach the web-site www.gender-budgets.org, which is run by the United Nations Development Fund for Women – UNIFEM. On this site you find examples of how governments, counties or regional and local authorities all over the world work with gender budgeting. It is with great humility that I read the headline ‘Gender budgeting for African development’ – and realise that in some parts of the world gender budgeting can be about giving the girl child access to food …

However, I have been asked to speak about promoting gender budgeting and the role of local and regional authorities in this work. As councillor of a local authority I can only stress the fact that we really can play an important role in promoting gender issues.

Let me take a few minutes to do some soul-searching: In the Nordic countries, not least in Sweden, we are proud to have come a very long way on the path towards gender equality. As a matter of fact, sometimes we even think that we are pretty close to having reached the goal. But, as always, there are both pros and cons.

I will give you some concrete examples of how we have worked with these issues in my town, the city of Umeå in the north of Sweden. It is in the everyday life in the towns and counties or regions, that women and men are creating equality. By enabling a gender equal budget at local level, we can give the citizens a better chance to attain a gender equal everyday life.

For years now we have known that public transportation is frequented more by women than by men and that men borrow fewer books from the library. This is, of course, of interest but, honestly, from an environmental point of view we would prefer that men also use public transportation rather than make women demand full access to the family car. And when it comes to the library I have read somewhere that men BUY more books – which of course is good for the editorial companies so they can publish more books for the libraries to buy and for the women to borrow.

The social services of my home town are about to start a gender budgeting process where the finances will undergo gender analysis. One question will be: how do we support and give aid to elderly people? Is the financing around this based on gender bias or on the actual needs of the elderly or people in need?

The budget for children and youth sports and leisure activities is measured and followed very closely to ensure an equal division of resources to boys and girls. The next interesting topic will be to analyse the investment side of this area, since boys’ sports traditionally are more expensive and more money is ploughed into the opportunities for this.

Yes, I suppose you can say that studying investments for youth sports is a luxury compared to the challenge of providing enough to eat for the girl.

Before you start envying us for having the possibility to bother about sports centre costs I would like to give you a couple of examples regarding health-care – and do not for one moment think that I choose these examples because they come from the county council sector – the local authorities are not at all better when it comes to care of the elderly for example. One could say that these examples are the results of a Gender Audit.

In the Region of Västra Götaland in the south-west part of Sweden there has been an ongoing effort to analyse whether care is given on equal terms. They have looked into areas such as care of stroke patients, diagnosing and treating heart attacks for women and men etc.

The ambulance unit looked into a group of patients who called because of broken hips (spine) after falling at home or outdoors. This is quite a large group for ambulance care. It was discovered that the majority - 75% of patients - were women of an average age of 85 years. These got a lower priority than men. Meaning that they had to wait much longer for the ambulance to arrive. Painkillers were given to men but not to women to the same degree.

We can only guess at the reasons for this. Was it that the people who made the priorities had the thought – it’s only old ladies, they are not that important?! Are men prioritized because they are not so common in this group of patients? Or do men and women describe their conditions differently?

Whatever the reason, the hospital decided to change their routines. First of all everybody received pain relief, whether or not they asked for it. Secondly, the ambulance was turned into a mobile hospital ward. The hip was taken care of directly in the vehicle. This took 27 extra minutes, but the final time saved could be counted in hours as they could be taken directly to X-ray bypassing the emergency room. All in all this meant higher-quality treatment for the patient - less time in hospital, less suffering, a shorter time between injury and operation - for men as well as for women. For the hospital it also meant saving money and time.

If the region had not started analysing statistics by gender they would never have noticed these differences and the potential for improvement. As one doctor puts it: “When you start seeing gender you also start seeing the individuals and their needs.”

The Västra Götaland Region has been granted funds to continue their important work. Politicians, managers and other key persons will go through gender training. Work teams will be offered guidance by gender coaches to quality secure their own working processes. Budgets and planning systems will be scrutinized to see if they are gender neutral. One proven way of securing equal care is to standardize treatment plans and checklists. This has led to equal accessibility and length of care.

I do not think that organizations which let women wait longer for the ambulance would actually say that the life of a woman is worth less than the life of a man. The consequences, however, are obvious….

The other county council gender audit is referred to as the ‘Laundry Bag Project’ – and don’t think for one moment that this is a joke! It is, literally, an example relating to laundry bags.

A few years ago Stockholm County Council worked with a gender equality program. Nurse Britta at a dermatological clinic was asked if she had seen any gender equality problems at the clinic and she mentioned that she had found that laundry bags from the shower facilities at the clinic were different depending on whether it was the men’s shower or the women’s shower. So – what was the background of these different laundry bag sizes?

I shall give you a short summary - the full study can be found in the journal Läkartidningen No. 40 2005. The study report is about patients with psoriasis, eczema or hand eczema. These diseases are approximately as frequent with men as with women.

The well-recognized treatments for these diseases are ultraviolet radiation, combined with softening cream and other ointments. After radiation treatment the patients used the shower – and threw the towel in the laundry bag.

What were the conclusions of this observation?

Men used more radiation treatment and hence threw more towels into the laundry bag.Women more often bought ointments and softening creams at the pharmacy and treated themselves at home.

When a calculation was made of how tax money was spent on the two patient categories – men and women – it was obvious that women subsidized the treatment budget of the clinic by as much as 25%. If the women’s treatment intensity were to be taken as the standard also for men, the treatment budget could be reduced by 22%, or, for that matter, more patients could be treated.

Further to the fact that women were self-treating to a much greater degree than men, they were also prescribed older and less expensive preparations. Taking into account that these preparations are tax-subsidized, women save even more for the county.

Having heard about these two county council examples one would of course wonder if the gender budgeting on investments for sports arenas is of any significance at all. Of course it is. In every way and on any issue it is important that we treat girls and boys, women and men, the same way and give them the same opportunities when we use tax money. I even think that if girls are taught that they have the right to as much as the boys – they will grow up to become women who do not accept to be treated in a negligent way when the ambulance is called for.

And, speaking about youngsters: with the dermatological experience my conclusion is that not only do we, as politicians, have to see to it that women and men get the equivalent treatment - parents must also teach their small boys to take care of themselves as much as their sisters and not call for a nurse when application of creams is needed!

And finally, to quote the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Mr. Terry Davis: “Gender inequality is unjust, unintelligent and expensive”.

Thank you for listening!