36 Advancing Gender Equality in Nepal: Refining gender-responsive budgeting for transformative impact Annex 3: Overview of Gender Auditing Gender auditing is a tool for scrutinising the results on gender-equality policies, programming and budgeting and GRB implementation. It is a critical component of ensuring accountability in government spending and assessing the effectiveness of public budgets in promoting gender equality. Auditing processes help to assess the financial expenditure against the physical progress and identify gaps in both policy and practice, ensuring that the commitments to gender equality are translated into meaningful outcomes. Objective of gender audits in GRB implementation Gender audits assess the degree to which PFM and budget processes have incorporated gender perspectives. The audits serve several specific objectives: • Accountability: They ensure that governments are held accountable for implementing GRB policies and allocating resources toward gender equality. • Transparency: Gender audits increase transparency in how resources are allocated, spent, and monitored, allowing stakeholders to understand whether budget allocations are effectively addressing gender disparities. • Measuring outcomes: Audits evaluate not only financial inputs(allocated budgets) but also the outcomes, e.g., improvements in women’s economic participation, access to healthcare, or education. • Identifying gaps: Gender audits help uncover gaps in budgeting processes, revealing instances where gender considerations were ignored or where insufficient resources were allocated to meet gender-equality objectives. Key steps for gender audits in GRB A comprehensive gender audit for GRB implementation involves several critical components: a. Assessment of gender-responsive budget allocations: This step involves reviewing the government programmes and the entire budget to assess whether specific allocations were made to promote gender equality. It includes identifying budget lines that address gender-specific issues and whether sufficient resources were allocated to support women and marginalised groups. b. Expenditure review: Beyond the initial allocations, gender audits also focus on the actual spending patterns. This involves determining whether allocated funds were spent as intended and whether spending was gender-sensitive in practice. Unspent funds, reallocated resources, or inefficient spending patterns may indicate gaps in GRB implementation. c. Impact evaluation: Auditors assess the impact of gender-sensitive spending. This goes beyond reviewing the financial data and focuses on measuring the real-world effects of budget allocations on gender equality outcomes. For instance, has spending on education resulted in more girls attending school? Has funding for maternal health improved access to healthcare for women in marginalised areas? d. Institutional capacity and processes: Auditing for GRB implementation includes evaluating the institutional capacity and processes within government agencies responsible for GRB. This involves reviewing the availability of gender-disaggregated data, the capacity of staff to conduct gender analysis, and the effectiveness of inter-agency coordination in implementing GRB policies.