The first Asia-Pacific regional workshop on Gender Responsive Budgeting for Breastfeeding will be hosted by the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute and School of Regulation and Global Governance on 11 and 12 September. The two day regional workshop aims to support efforts to improve breastfeeding policies and its funding in national budgets. 

 

Experts in breastfeeding, health and fiscal policy will draw on their experience from India, Philippines, Korea and Australia to introduce key concepts of gender-responsive budgeting (GRB), economics of breastfeeding, and important new global tools for evaluating national breastfeeding policies and their funding. 

 

Global progress in improving infant and young child feeding practices is hindered by lack of funding in support of national breastfeeding policies, and there are renewed calls at the international level to address funding gaps. The World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi) tracks country progress in implementing the WHO/UNICEF Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding, and is supported by a costing tool launched in 2013 to help advocacy and budgeting at the national level. Gender- Responsive Budgeting (GRB) strategies to link gender equality commitments and economic and fiscal policy could enhance these efforts. Some thirty countries across the Asia-Pacific region have adopted elements of GRB. 

 

Join us to learn about the potential of these strategies and tools, and the synergies between them, to improve gender equality and health and economic outcomes for children, women and men. 

 

 

 

NOTE: A public seminar Gender responsive budgeting and breastfeeding policies: Insights from the Asia-Pacific region, will be held on Monday 11 September 2017 from 9.15-11am in the Weston Theatre, JG Crawford Building. Registration for this event is available here. 

 

Image credit: Catherine Constable