Ever since 2009, budgets have had to take account of both, women and men, equally. So far, so good….But, what is actually meant by this obligation? What is it based on? And: Where’s the actual benefit? Budget laws, budgeting, gender mainstreaming.… Admittedly, this is not that easy – neither when it comes to designing federal budgets nor when it comes to planning or comprehending them.

We want to provide answers to these questions and the like on our Gender Budgeting Blog, because: While gender budgeting is key and a logical measure in order to build a gender-equal society, it remains a bulky and cumbersome topic.

We aim to add attractiveness to such a dry subject by creating an appealing visual web-presence using easily understandable language. In doing so, we want to bring to life and roll out the subject of gender budgeting. Consequently, we have created a web-blog on this issue – a mélange of a static website and a dynamic blog.

We are the Inter-Ministerial Working Group for Gender Mainstreaming/Budgeting (IMAG GMB). The group was launched in 2000 by a resolution adopted by the Council of Ministers of the Federal Government of Austria. For further information, see: http://www.imag-gmb.at.

Having been given the mandate to foster and promote Gender Mainstreaming we have played an active role in awareness-raising and implementation of Gender Mainstreaming strategies in the last couple of years (e.g. IMAG GMB website, our quarterly newsletter, awareness-raising campaigns targeted at government members, managers, public authorities, further education and training, information events and so on).

Take a look at the wide range of information presented on this blog, or: Become active and participate in this initiative. Browse through the blog, share it, make comments, and join in!