Gender Responsive Budgeting As A Tool For Achieving SDG 3: Assessing The Doability Of Health Goals In India
Shreeja Walia, B.A.LL.B., The Law School, University of Jammu
Vanshika Dhiman, B.A.LL.B., The Law School, University of Jammu
ABSTRACT
Despite commitments to "leaving no one behind," India’s progress toward SDG 3, which calls for healthy lives and well-being for all, remains constrained by an often overlooked issue: gender-blind budgeting. This paper examines whether India can achieve or accomplish SDG 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) in the current fiscal framework unless Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) serves as a central accountability tool.
The report looks at how public investment in prominent public health policies, including the National Health Mission, POSHAN Abhiyan, and Ayushman Bharat, is sensitive to gender. It uses the framework of substantive equality found in constitutional and international law. The paper shows that women’s unpaid household work, reproductive health needs, and intersectional disadvantage are often invisible in budgeting. These omissions cause systemic distortions in resource allocation, leading to indirect discrimination. The legal and moral foundation of SDG commitments is weakened by the absence of gender-specific impact evaluations. The goal becomes merely utopian rather than a right to be enforced, which people can legally demand as fundamental values like human dignity and non discrimination are undermined.
This study highlights GRB's ability to turn constitutional commitments like equality under Article 15 and the right to health under Article 21 into practical outcomes by presenting it as both a right based and feasibility enhancing instrument. Fiscal justice is the cornerstone of sustainable development, and the transition from symbolic inclusivity to accountability is ultimately crucial. By showing that "sustainable development" runs the risk of becoming development without women in the absence of Gender Responsive budgeting, the study adds to the conversation on the viability of the SDGs.
Keywords: Gender Responsive Budgeting, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Public Health Policies, Fiscal Justice, Intersectionality
