The process of introducing the analysis of gender relations in the budgetary process as a powerful tool that contributes to the implementation of gender mainstreaming in public policies started in the Basque Country sixteen years ago, at the beginning of this century. At that time, it was something completely new for the public administration and also for the academy. Nowadays, however, it is a concept very extended in several administrative levels, having been pushed forward mainly by the equality technicians working at the local administrations who often work closely with support from the University. 

In my case, in the last ten years, as part of a small team of researchers of the university of the Basque Country I have taken part in many trainings and small projects carried out by different administrative levels (from very small villages, medium-size towns, some capital cities, provincial councils, and the government of our Autonomous Community). Some of them were very brief (pilot experiences), but others are still in process of consolidation and we are learning from their evolution and collaborating at different degrees with their promoters.

In this process we have also worked with the Balearic Island of Mallorca, more specifically with the Mallorca Island Council for four years, and nowadays, from the beginning of this current year (2016) with the Barcelona Town Hall. In all the cases, we have offered technical support to the technicians of the several local administrations, as we have considered very important to train the people who really know the working of the programs that were to be analysed in the gender budgeting reports. Besides, our main aim has always been the sustainability along time of these projects in order to integrate these practices within the annual current steps given by the budgetary processes. In that sense, the capability approach has been very useful.

Along all this time we have had the opportunity to know very closely the way our local institutions work, the dynamics of their behaviour as well as their fears and the characteristics of their demands when they have to integrate something new in their routines. And from that experience we have tried to understand the possibilities and difficulties found at introducing a feminist way of working with public finances.

Prof. Yolanda Jubeto teaches at the Department of Applied Economics at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao (Bizkaia)