Thailand Gender-Responsive Budgeting — From Constitutional Commitment to Whole-of-Government Implementation

Thailand enshrined gender equality in its 2017 Constitution and enacted the Gender Equality Act (2015), establishing a Committee to Promote Gender Equality (CPGE). At the request of the Thai government, the OECD prepared a Gender Budgeting Action Plan (published 2020, document GOV/PGC/SBO(2020)14), providing a practical roadmap for integrating gender considerations into Thailand's annual budget cycle across all central agencies. From fiscal year 2020, the Bureau of the Budget began requiring all spending ministries to include gender impact information with budget requests — identifying how expenditure differently affects women, men, the elderly, and other groups.

In December 2021, the Cabinet formalised this as a mandatory government-wide policy, with all central agencies and local administrative organisations required to implement Gender-Responsive Budgeting (GRB). A Memorandum of Understanding was signed with UN Women, the Secretariat of the Senate, and the Secretariat of the House of Representatives to support training and monitoring. Thailand committed to gender-disaggregated data systems and monitoring at the Generation Equality Forum. The framework is now operational in more than 30 line ministries.

In the broader institutional environment, women's representation in the House of Representatives rose from 5.4% in the 2019 general election to 16.2% in 2020 and 19.4% in 2023 — threefold growth in four years. The 2023 cabinet included eight female ministers, the highest number in Thailand's political history. The OECD and UN Women note that direct causal attribution of parliamentary gains to GRB is not established; systemic factors including party reform and civil society mobilisation also contributed. Challenges remain in linking budget allocations to gender-specific outcome targets, and the OECD recommends strengthening performance measurement.

Read the full analysis: https://one.oecd.org/document/GOV/PGC/SBO(2020)14/en/pdf