NABO has published its FY 2015 Final Accounts Analysis of the Gender Budget to assist the National Assembly in reviewing the FY 2015 final accounts from the perspective of gender responsiveness.

In particular, the report makes recommendations for improvement based on analysis of the government’s final account reports of the gender budget regarding 343 programs from 42 central government agencies, costing KRW 26.4348 trillion, which were submitted to the National Assembly in the form of an appendix to the government’s final account reports.

First, no specific national goals or financial management plans for gender equality were given. As a result, gender equality goals at the national and individual agency level, programs included in the gender budget, and performance goals were only loosely connected, while the performance of gender budget programs was poorly managed from a mid- to long-term view, and there was insufficient effectiveness analysis of performance goals and gender equality.

National goals and financial management plans for gender equality should therefore be presented in the National Fiscal Management Plan, the government’s final account reports for the gender budget need to include whether performance goals for the past three years at a minimum are achieved, and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family should play a more active role in developing the gender budget and final account reports towards increasing their credibility.

Second, the achievement of performance goals in 2015 stood at 70.9%, slightly higher than the 68.8% of the previous year but lower than 73.0% in 2013 and 71.1% in 2012.
 
In order to improve the rate, performance should be more stringently managed through defining of social structure factors that influence the adequacy of gender budget programs, the effect of expanding the scope of program beneficiaries, and the program processes.

Third, a variety of issues have been pointed out related to developing the gender budget and final account reports and their operation since deliberation of FY 2010 final accounts of the gender budget, but no improvement has been made due to the poor feedback mechanism within these final accounts.
In this regard, a comprehensive and systematic assessment is needed to measure the adequacy of the current system for gender budget operation, thereby developing measures for improvement.