Unveiling Gender Disparities: A Critical Review of PSDP Budget Allocations (2020-2025)

Abstract

This Study rigorously assessed gender specific budgetary allocations of Pakistan Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2020-2025, focusing on evaluating the degree and impact of women specific initiatives. The main aim was to understand how these initiatives and budget allocations empower women in Pakistani society. Using annual PSDP reports for documentary analysis, the research also examined allocations using gender-responsive budgeting framework to identify trends, sectoral gaps and funding patterns. The finding highlighted that, despite a slight increase in education and health allocation, funding for gender-specific initiatives is still shockingly low, accounting only for 0.04% of the total PSDP across five years. Overall, the study highlighted noticeable inequality of prioritization where education and health received the majority of funding, whereas economic empowerment, legal aid and rural based initiatives consistently receive low levels of funding. The study recommended at least a 5-10% increase on gender-based allocation for the total PSDP, in order to provide a radically higher budgetary allocation that could successfully promote women empowerment and gender equality.