Liberia: Lawmakers Trained on Gender Responsive Planning, Budgeting

One of Liberia’s leading civil society organizations, Integrity Watch Liberia, with funding from the United Nations Women, has conducted an intensive regional training session for more than 30 legislators on Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting.

The training, which brought together incoming and outgoing lawmakers, was lectured by gender experts. It began on Thursday, November 23, 2023, in Paynesville and climaxed on Friday, November 24th.

Giving an overview along with the objectives of the initiative, the Executive Director of Integrity Watch Liberia, Harold Aidoo, disclosed that through this training, legislators will gain a deeper understanding of how gender-responsive planning and budgeting can address the specific needs and challenges faced by women. 

According to him, they will also learn how to identify gender gaps within existing policies, programs, and budgets, and develop strategies to bridge these gaps effectively.

"One of the key objectives is for us to understand the consequences of gender inequality and social exclusion at different levels (individual, family, organizational, and national levels)," he added.

Aidoo told the huge turnout, which comprised current and outgoing members of the 54th Legislature, as well as lawmakers-elect of the 55th Legislature, that the engagement also seeks to reflect the minds of state actors on key issues in the country.

He further stressed that the training aims to strengthen the skills of national actors to analyze the national budget and make decisions using a gender lens to ensure gender-equitable distributions of resources and equal opportunities for all citizens.

At the same time, Aidoo called on the ensuing 55th Legislature to revisit the portion of their standing rules which, in his opinion, makes the Speaker too superior and not accountable to the other legislators. He also termed this as very critical for the lawmakers.

In addition, he said it is about the voting process, to have a transparent voting process to allow the citizens to know how they vote and improve their voting process in plenary to know who is voting and for what, in the interest of accountability and transparency.

He also wants the lawmakers to institutionalize gender-responsive budgeting to ensure that, to a large extent, it disaggregates and addresses gender matters.

“It is very difficult to define the impact made by the national budget following analysis on the past budget to address people with disabilities and others. Though it comes from the Ministry of Finance, the lawmakers have the responsibility to ensure that the right things are done,” Harold Aidoo intimated.

“It is very difficult to define the impact made by the national budget following analysis of the past budget to address people with disabilities and others. Though it comes from the Ministry of Finance, the lawmakers have the responsibility to ensure that the right things are done,” Aidoo said.

Also speaking, Maryland County District One Representative, P. Mike Jury, termed the gathering as a strategy to address gender equality.

He thanked Integrity Watch Liberia for being farsighted to organize such an important training, including UN Women for their support to the governing process of Liberia.

For her part, the Chief of Party for Democracy International, Stephanie Lynn, lauded Integrity Watch Liberia for the event and the lawmakers for their participation.

“The role of the lawmakers is very important, whether outgoing or incoming, for representing their people,” she noted.

The foreign diplomat indicated that the primary objective of Democracy International is to support the representativeness of the legislators to adequately represent their people.

She continued, “We’re excited to be working with the women’s legislative caucus and legislators to do things.”