With the next Medium-Term Expenditure Framework being drafted, South Africa has a significant opportunity to reimagine and implement the Gender Budget Statement as a meaningful document, but only if it tackles entrenched inequalities.

With the next Medium-Term Expenditure Framework being drafted, South Africa has a significant opportunity to reimagine and implement the Gender Budget Statement as a meaningful document, but only if it tackles entrenched inequalities.

Gender-responsive budgeting - or GRB in government and policy circles - is an essential tool for achieving a truly equitable society. At its best, GRB goes far beyond superficial allocations to so-called women's programmes. It fundamentally shapes how governments raise revenue, allocate resources and spend public money, ensuring that every fiscal decision actively works to dismantle the systemic inequalities that women face.

Although more than 100 countries have adopted gender-responsive budgeting frameworks, South Africa's efforts have lain dormant for years. Quietly released amid the political noise of three separate Budgets in 2025, the Gender Budget Statement (GBS) was a potentially significant step forward. But in its current form it risks remaining a supplementary, symbolic document, with little meaningful analysis of how the national Budget advances or undermines gender equity.

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The biggest concern is that the GBS 2025 relies heavily on gender expenditure tagging - a method of labelling spending based on its intended gender impact. While this approach can be a useful first step in...