UKRAINE

AT A GLANCE
Head of Government:  President Viktor Yushchenko
Next election: 2010
Capital: Kyiv
Population:  45,700,395
Independence:  1991 (from Soviet Union)
Human Development Index (HDI):  82nd out of 179 countries
Gender Gap Index (GGI):  62nd out of 130 countries
Gross National Index (GNI) per capita: US$2,550

Assessing Gender Imbalances in the Budgetary Process

Status: Complete, 2009
Local Organization: Secretariat of the President
Canadian Expert: Paul Darby, Deputy Chief Economist & Pedro Antunes, Director, National & Provincial Forecast, both of The Conference Board of Canada.
Case Studies: Gender Budgeting: Influencing Policy Choices in Niger & Ukraine by Gordon Evans, Marie Fortier-Balogh & Diana Ivancic- Skinner
Strengthening Checks and Balances: Budget Analysis in Ukraine’s Office of the President by Gordon Evans
Paper: What is Gender Mainstreaming? by Isabelle Solon Helal and Sandra Le Courtois
Article: Strengthening Checks and Balances: Budget Analysis in Ukraine's Office of the President by Gordon Evans, appeared in Public Sector Management magazine in 2009 

When CIDA’s Deployment for Democratic Development (DDD) was asked to coordinate an initiative in the Ukraine aimed at enhancing the Secretariat of the President’s oversight of the state budget, gender was the last thing on anyone’s mind.  Although the purpose of this DDD initiative was to build the President’s capacity to assess the social and economic impacts of the budget, it soon veered into new territory when CIDA proposed the addition of a gender budgeting component, which explores the divergent impact of budgetary proposals on women and men.

Pioneering new techniques of disaggregating budget analysis to identify gender imbalances in consumption of health, social protection and other public services, this analysis represents a breakthrough not only in the Ukraine, but also around the world.  Indeed, as comparable work has yet to been undertaken in most developed countries, the knowledge sharing benefits of this initiative cannot be overstated.  Dr. Olga Romanyuk of the Ukrainian International Centre for Policy Studies is to be commended for leading the gender component of this initiative, which proved value added to the macroeconomic advice provided by Paul Darby, Deputy Chief Economist, and Pedro Antunes, Director, National and Provincial Forecast, The Conference Board of Canada.