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Good practice Imported

South Korea's Gender-Responsive Budgeting under the National Finance Act

South Korea · Seoul · See the South Korea profile · See the Seoul profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 42% 74/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

South Korea's National Finance Act mandates an annual Gender Budget Statement and Balance Sheet; the gender-responsive budget grew roughly 3.2-fold between 2010 and 2024, though implementation varies widely across agencies.

3.7% to 7.4%
Gender-responsive share of national budget (2010–2017)
~USD 17.3 billion (about 3.2x 2010 level)
Gender-responsive budget (2024)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Ministry of Economy and Finance, Republic of Korea
Period
2006-present
Keywords
public finance, government budgeting, gender mainstreaming

Context

South Korea's National Finance Act (2006) requires the central government to prepare an annual Gender Budget Statement and Balance Sheet alongside the national budget, with mandatory implementation beginning at central-government level in 2010 and extended to local governments in 2013.

Results

The gender-responsive share of the national budget rose from 3.7% in 2010 to 7.4% in 2017, reaching approximately USD 17.3 billion by 2024 — roughly 3.2 times its 2010 level — though peer-reviewed research found integrating gender objectives into performance budgeting burdensome, met with official resistance, and applied unevenly across municipalities.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Ministry of Economy and Finance gender-budget analysts, line-ministry and local-government budget officers

Conditions for success

  • a legal mandate under the National Finance Act embedding gender statements directly into the annual budget cycle

Common failure modes

  • integrating gender objectives into the performance-budgeting framework proved burdensome and met resistance from some officials
  • substantial variation in how seriously municipal governments applied gender budgeting after the 2013 mandate

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

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