Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting — Bhutan's National Commission for Women and Children

The Royal Government of Bhutan established the National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC) in 2004 as the national machinery for women's and children's rights, upgrading it to a fully autonomous agency in 2008. NCWC coordinates a network of Gender Focal Points across ministries — first created at national level in 2002 and expanded to the local level in 2010.

Under the 11th Five Year Plan, the government adopted Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting (GRPB) as a core gender-mainstreaming strategy, piloting it in the agriculture, health and education ministries. In 2016, UN Women and the Asian Development Bank published Bhutan's first sectoral gender diagnostic, "Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting in Bhutan: From Analysis to Action." NCWC also runs an online Gender Equality Monitoring System (GEMS) to track gender-mainstreaming progress by sector. According to Bhutan's own national review submitted to the UN, gender-tagged budget allocations rose from Nu 225.208 million in 2014–15 to Nu 531.164 million in 2019–20 (self-reported government figures).

Despite two decades of institution-building, downstream political outcomes have been volatile. Women's share of National Assembly seats rose from 8.5% (2013) to 14.9% (2018) and to roughly 17% by 2022–23, according to IPU Parline data — but collapsed to just 2 of 47 seats (about 4.3%) after the January 2024 election. Bhutan's National Council election of April 2023 was similarly described in local reporting as a "setback for women," with only one woman elected outright before two more were appointed by the King. This shows that institutional budgeting mechanisms have not, on their own, translated into durable gains in women's political representation.

Read the full analysis: https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2016/05/gender-responsive-planning-and-budgeting-in-bhutan