ABSTRACT
During the past decade Mexico, like several other middle-power countries, has introduced gender-responsive budget initiatives. But how effective are genderresponsive budget initiatives in making governments accountable for the gender impacts of their budgets in an era of neoliberal governance? This chapter assesses the gender-responsive budget initiative that has emerged in Mexico under neoliberalism as a strategy for increasing the national government’s accountability for the gender impacts of its budget. In particular, the chapter examines three aspects of the Mexican initiative that international experience indicates are important in contributing to the accountability of governments for the gender impacts of their budgets. They are:
1 the ability of gender-responsive budget initiatives to connect with and bring about changes in the budgetary process;
2 the contribution of women’s non-government organizations in putting political pressure on governments to be accountable for their budgetary impacts on gender equality;
3 the capacity of these initiatives to contest the macroeconomic framework of the budget from a gender perspective.
