Women in Public Finance

Maja Bosnić is a senior economist with over two decades of experience in public and corporate financial management, specialising in gender and climate-responsive budgeting. She led one of the world's largest projects on gender budgeting, the Gender Budgeting in Ukraine Project, funded by the Swedish Government, from 2013 to 2020. She has collaborated with major international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group. She is the co-founder of Claim.Impact, a consultancy firm specialising in green and gender budgeting. She is a sought-after speaker on the intersection of gender and finance, delivering a highly viewed TED Talk at the TEDWomen Conference in Palm Springs in 2021, which has garnered close to 2 million views.Manal Fouad is a former Assistant Director and Division Chief at the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, with over 30 years of experience in fiscal policy and capacity development in the public financial management and budgeting area around the world. She has numerous publications including as co-editor of the book Well Spent: How Strong Infrastructure Governance Can End Waste in Public Investment. She has represented the IMF in various international fora, including the G20 Infrastructure Working Group.

• Foreword by Mia Mottley 1 Introduction: Looking Inside Public Financial Management: Gender in Budgeting Part I: Women in PFM: Navigating the Boys’ Club 2 An Unconventional Path from Central Bank to Civil Society 3 Finding Solace in Public Financial Management 4 Madame Budget-Programme 5 From Slovenia to the World 6 Limitless Skies and Endless Dreams: The Story of a Girl from the Mountains 7 Resistance through PFM in Ukraine: An Interview with Oksana Tsiupa Part II: Finding Ourselves in Gender Budgeting 8 Gender Budgeting: That Fire in my Belly 9 Gender Budgeting in Me / Me in Gender Budgeting 10 Public Finance Made Me a Feminist! 11 Beyond the Numbers: Making Budgets Work for Women and Girls Part III: From Margin to Mainstream: Gender in budgeting 12 Pioneering Gender Budgeting in Indonesia: An Interview with Maya Rostanty 13 Making the Personal Political: Activism, Academia, and Beyond 14 Roots, Resilience, and Reform: My Life in PFM! 15 “Are you the Secretary? No, I’m the boss” 16 Demystifying Budgeting in and for Lebanon Part IV: Reflections and Conversations 17 Looking Back, Moving Forward 18 Budgeting for Equality from South Africa to Canada 19 Personalizing the Theory 20 Public Finance, Feminism, and Resistance: A Conversation with Marine Destrez, Sepideh Labani, Thokozile Madonko, Scherie Nicol, and Sureni Weerathunga Afterword: Opening Essential Conversations

'This volume has been an eye opener for me at various levels. For instance, I was never aware of the existence of—and my belonging to—a privileged PFM “boys’ club”, despite the overwhelming evidence. Nor was I aware of the emergence of a “public finance sisterhood”, notwithstanding my professional association with quite a few formidable women, some of whom are among the authors of or mentioned in this volume. The personal stories—yes, they do matter—collected in this volume present a narrative about how the tide has been rising, perhaps still too slowly. To paraphrase the poet, even for PFM “the times they are a changing”. It was about time.' Marco Cangiano, Former assistant director of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department and currently an ODI research associate 'An extraordinary insight into the power and potential of gender responsive budgeting to transform not only policy outcomes, but the thinking and practice of those who design and manage public budgets. These stories need to be read by researchers, practitioners and policy-makers. The collection should inspire young women into a career that can make a massive difference in people’s lives and further discussion on how to make public finance space more inclusive.' Michaela Lavender, Managing Editor: Public Money & Management 'By giving voice to the many women leaders in public financial management from around the world, this book explores the many persistent challenges to making gender-budgeting a critical reality. The personal accounts featured also help identify key opportunities that can drive progress in both "women in public finance" and "public finance for women". Women (and men) in PFM should take note of this creative (and at times witty) approach to story-telling, a powerful tool for promoting behavioural change. Encouraged by the diverse experience, especially women in PFM are encouraged to add their voices to the 22 profiles published, so that the current thinning pipeline of female talent at higher levels in PFM soon becomes a myth.' Carmen Niethammer, Senior Gender Specialist at the European Investment Bank'This book brings me to tears. Not just because each story is written so beautifully but it is rare that any economics' articles, texts or research tug at our hearts. Having spent most of my career promoting good public financial management and being a feminist, this book ranks in importance with Claudia Goldin's Nobel Economics Prize in 2023 which highlighted gender pay gaps in the labour market. The breadth of regions covered will resonate with women everywhere, as we see ourselves in these stories and relate to the policies that need tending. I congratulate the authors and hope this book gets disseminated widely and talked about for years to come.' Therese Turner-Jones, Former IMF Staff, CARTAC Coordinator, and Inter-American Development Bank General Manager for the Caribbean