Outcome TUR_D_1.3

By 2025, governance systems are more transparent, accountable, inclusive and rights-based with the participation of civil society, and quality of judicial services is improved.

In 2025, Türkiye further advanced the integration of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) within governance systems at both national and local levels, contributing to strengthened transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability in public budgeting. As an important development, Committee on Equality of Opportunity for Women and Men (KEFEK) in the Grand National Assembly included GRB within the annual monitoring framework targeting the line ministries and national public institutions. As part of its annual monitoring role, KEFEK invites line ministries to present progress related to gender equality and women’s empowerment through a set of guiding questions. In 2024 and 2025, KEFEK monitored line ministries vis-à-vis their actions related to GRB through newly introduced guiding questions, showing an emerging shift toward recognizing GRB as a relevant dimension of parliamentary oversight as also recorded in the official minutes of the parliament. While this development reflects an ongoing process rather than a completed reform, it represents a meaningful step toward strengthening a link between policy implementation and legislative monitoring, contributing to more robust governance framework for gender equality. Through targeted training sessions, awareness-raising activities and technical guidance provided to KEFEK members and experts since 2022, UN Women contributed to strengthening understanding of GRB principles and creating an enabling environment for gradual integration of GRB considerations into parliamentary processes. In parallel, efforts continued at the local level to strengthen the institutionalization of GRB within budgeting frameworks. The Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, who sets the regulatory budget standards and general principles for municipalities and local administration units across Türkiye whose combined public spending amounts to USD 49.6 billion in 2024, introduced Women’s Empowerment as a standalone budget programme within the updated official Local Governments Budget Preparation Guideline. This programme is one of 38 sectoral budget programmes that local governments will use when preparing their annual budgets. The updated guideline draws on technical inputs and recommendations developed through cooperation with UN Women. The transition of local governments to a programme-based budgeting system further strengthened this progress. This structural development reflects a significant step toward embedding gender equality objectives within local fiscal frameworks and establishing a sustainable basis for inclusive budgeting at the local level. These advances have been supported by sustained technical cooperation, institutional engagement and joint advocacy of UN Women and Ministry of Family and Social Services under GRB Project. Through close collaboration with the KEFEK in the Grand National Assembly and the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, alongside targeted capacity building and technical exchange activities for public officials, UN Women strengthened institutional understanding of GRB principles and informing technical adjustments in budget preparation processes. Together, these developments reflect the cumulative impact of long-term awareness raising and training efforts, which have enhanced the capacity of national and local authorities to progressively integrate gender equality considerations into planning and budgeting systems.

By 2025, governance systems are more transparent, accountable, inclusive and rights-based with the participation of civil society, and quality of judicial services is improved.

There has been significant progress in the reporting period against the achievement of more accountable, inclusive and rights-based governance systems as stated in the outcome. Ministries and public institutions in Türkiye used at a greater extent the gender responsive budgeting (GRB) tools in the key planning and budgeting processes in 2024, which results in consideration of the specific needs and priorities of women and men equally in budget allocations and adequate funding for women’s empowerment policies. As per the Presidential Annual Programme, the number of ministries and public institutions responsible for specific measures on women’s empowerment in 2025 has increased to 11, tripling since 2020 when 4 institutions had such measures. For the first time in 2025, the Ministry of Treasury and Finance has a measure on production and analysis of sex-disaggregated data and the Ministry of Youth and Sports on increasing women’s representation in sports. This indicates that various ministries, beyond just the Ministry of Family and Social Services, are dedicating funds and implementing initiatives to enhance the well-being of women and girls. As another GRB tool, the number of gender-sensitive performance indicators in the Government's annual budget programmes have risen from 39 in 2022 to 60 in 2025. This allows better monitoring of the performance of public spending in terms of its effects on women and men. Similarly, national level public institutions have more explicitly included targets and indicators on women’s empowerment in their new 5-year Strategic Plans, which form the basis for annual performance-based budgets. For instance, the Turkish Employment Agency has now a standalone target specifically on women’s employment different than its previous Strategic Plan. Similarly, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Interior introduced for the first time dedicated targets on women’s access to justice and ending violence against women. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs EU Directorate are among the other institutions incorporating targets and strategies in their planning and budgeting documents. There have been also improvements in the assessment of publicly funded investment projects, where Presidency of Strategy and Budget, central institution assessing the project proposals of public institutions and determining the fund allocations, newly introduced an assessment grid to evaluate the potential impact of the proposed investment projects on women, children, youth, elderly, individuals with disabilities. This means that, government institutions should assess their project proposals in terms of its impact on women. As the leading government agency working on women’s empowerment, the Ministry of Family and Social Services (MoFSS) launched first of its kind Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting Strategy and Action Plan in 2024, providing a structured policy framework for all government institutions to systematically and sustainably integrate an equality perspective into the public budget cycle. MoFSS has also incorporated GRB into the new Women’s Empowerment Action Plan in Türkiye for 2024-2028, which serves as the main national policy document. UN Women’s extensive efforts in capacity building and advocacy on gender-responsive planning and budgeting tools in Türkiye have led to these changes. Since 2022, over 2000 public officials and senior managers, including parliamentarians, have gained insights into the gendered aspects of public services and knowledge of GRB tools through seminars, training sessions, and study visits organized by UN Women. In 2024, 178 public officials gained knowledge on GRB in trainings and study visits. Through the International Conference co-organized by UN women and Ministry of Family and Social Services in 2024, 249 participants from Türkiye and other countries including high-level government officials and practitioners from ministries, local governments, gender mechanisms, civil society and academicians, have gained new perspectives on implementation of GRB and knowledge on different practices in the world, and identified entry points for future interventions. UN Women also offered technical expertise and played a facilitative role in functioning of the inter-institutional Technical Working Group, developing the Policy Document, and guidelines in 2024. The Ministry of Family and Social Services Directorate on the Status of Women, as UN Women’s key partner, coordinated and supported these initiatives, while the Presidency of Strategy and Budget, as the oversight and coordinating institution of budgets, provided technical expertise. Advancements in the field of GRB in Türkiye contribute to SDG Target 5c and indicator 5.c.1 on policies and legislation for the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

By 2025, governance systems are more transparent, accountable, inclusive and rights-based with the participation of civil society, and quality of judicial services is improved.

There has been progress against the achievement of the outcome both at national and local level in the reporting period. Government of Türkiye further instituted the gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) approach into the planning and budgeting cycle at national level to promote the empowerment of all women and girls. Recently announced 12th National Development Plan of the Government for the 2024-2028 period introduces a specific policy on mainstreaming of women's empowerment in development and implementation of all plans and policies with measures on data, analysis, budgeting and indicators. Presidency of Strategy and Budget highlighted the GRB approach for the first time in the Investment Programme Guideline and in the Citizen’s Budget Guideline. Based on the improvements in the performance budgeting frameworks and capacities, OECD included Türkiye in 2023 for the first time among the countries having successfully introduced gender budgeting. The line ministries also made greater use of gender responsive budgeting tools in their plans and budgets taking into consideration of the specific needs and priorities of women and girls. The number of gender sensitive indicators in the budget performance documents has increased from 39 in 2022 up to 59 in 2024. Ministry of National Education made budgetary allocations for improvements in infrastructure of hostels for secondary school, meeting the specific needs of girls, following a gender needs assessment and UN Women-supported trainings. Additionally, The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Turkish Employment Agency included dedicated targets with budget estimations and gender sensitive indicators in their Strategic Plans for 2024-2028 for supporting women’s economic empowerment and employment. At local level, four pilot municipalities - Edirne, Eskisehir, Gaziantep and Kocaeli – started to make improvements in their youth, sports and public transportation services and data management systems to be more gender responsive based on the GRB analysis conducted with a participatory approach in 2023. These concrete actions include but not limited to establishment of new communication channeles, increasing the number of buses as per the feedback received from female and male passangers during the analysis, integration of sex-dissaggration in data systems, a new scoring system for cash support to amateur sports clubs in order to encourage more women and girls to participate in sports and to provide more inclusive services. National and local level institutions made improvements in national and local level budget performance framework and public services as a result of UN Women’s capacity development and advocacy efforts. 699 staff from 35 central institutions acquired knowledge on GRB tools through technical trainings conducted by UN Women since 2022. As per the post training monitoring survey conducted in March 2023 between 9-12 months after the trainings, 37% of the respondents reported that they have taken action in their daily work after the trainings for applying the skills they have gained. Improvements in service delivery, data collection, indicators, project management and personnel related issues were listed as the top 5 areas where the trainees implemented GRB tools. Similarly, 29 senior level officials including 12 MPs and 474 public officials gained insight on GRB in 2023 through UN Women seminars. 4 local level sectoral gender analysis, facilitated by UN Women, provided insights and recommendations to the municipalities and decision makers on gendered aspects of public services. Ministry of Family and Social Services as the key partner of UN Women coordinated and supported these initiatives with gender perspective and Presidency of Strategy and Budget as the oversight and coordinating institution of budgets provided technical expertise in the process. The Theory of change in relation with this outcome is valid and it is expected to have further improvements and long-term achievements in upcoming years in systematic integration of gender responsive budgeting as good budgeting by public institutions at central and local level as the interventions in this field continue. These achievements will contribute to addressing needs of women and men equally and ensure women’s and men’s equal access to opportunities and resources in line with national and international commitments and frameworks.

By 2025, governance systems are more transparent, accountable, inclusive and rights-based with the participation of civil society, and quality of judicial services is improved.

There has been progress in 2022 towards achievement of this UNSDCF outcome. The Government of Türkiye continued its efforts of mainstreaming equality between women and men in development and monitoring of annual public budget programmes of public institutions. The number of sex-disaggregated performance indicators has increased from 39 to 51 in Türkiye’s Central Government Budget for 2023 covering all Line Ministries and central level institutions which was announced in late 2022. The Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, General Directorate of Local Authorities updated the Budget Preparation Guideline for Municipalities 2023-2024 in July 2022 and stressed the necessity of the gender responsive budgeting (GRB)approach and gender sensitive indicators in the budget process. The guideline is one of the main documents used by local administrations in budget preparation and the new references are an important entry-point for promoting gender perspective in municipal budgets. Gender responsive municipal budgets are key to ensure local level public services contribute to women’s empowerment and women and men benefit equally from these services. This process has been initiated by official recommendation by Ministry of Family and Social Services Directorate General on Women’s Status and supported by the increased capacities and understanding of heads of units at General Directorate of Local Authorities through technical trainings provided by UN Women. In 2022, senior managers and experts from line Ministries increased their awareness and knowledge on GRB through UN Women-supported trainings and some have already demonstrated their willingness to apply this knowledge in their programmes. The Ministry of Industry and Technology introduced a new measure targeting specifically improvement of women’s economic activities on digital platforms under the women’s empowerment budget programme in the Presidency of Government of Türkiye Annual Programme for 2023. In 2022, 504 public officials from all ministries and central level government institutions gained awareness, knowledge, and tools on GRB through in-depth trainings and programme analysis as evidenced in pre and post assessments. UN Women also pursued high level advocacy, shared international best practice experiences and facilitated technical discussions between key institutions engaging in budgeting processes in partnership with Ministry of Family and Social Services, Presidency of Strategy and Budget and respective Parliamentary Committees in Türkiye under a comprehensive programme on gender responsive planning and budgeting [1] .. Capacity building efforts in previous years and introduction of specific references in the Budget Preparation Guidelines for 2023-2025 also had positive impact on improvements in 2023’s public budget programmes as mid-term. Ministry of Family and Social Services provided overall coordination of the government institutions in their engagement in capacity development activities, Presidency of Strategy and Budget took active part in delivery of trainings and seminars and provided concrete recommendations on indicators to the line ministries. The Theory of change in relation with this outcome is valid and it is expected to have further improvements and long-term achievements in upcoming years in systematic integration of gender responsive budgeting as good budgeting by public institutions at central and local level as the interventions in this field continue. These achievements will contribute to addressing needs of women and men equally and ensure women’s and men’s equal access to opportunities and resources in line with national and international commitments and frameworks. [1] www.equalbudgeting.org