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of GRB in the state. Key officials and senior government
personnel participated in these workshops. The commit-
ment of the state government eventually gave rise to the
setting up of the Penang Women’s Development Corporation
(PWDC) in November 2011 as a fully-funded state agency
dedicated to the mission of promoting gender equality and
social justice. Penang is the first and only state in Malaysia
to have formed such an agency.
PWDC’s vision is to mainstream gender into the policies
and programmes of all sectors to achieve gender and social
justice in the state of Penang. GRB has become the flagship
programme in PWDC. A scoping exercise was done in 2011
to study the best approach for implementing GRB in Penang.
The outcome from this was a project document on the Gender
Responsive and Participatory Budgeting (GRPB) project in
Penang local government. It set the direction and a plan of
action that need to be followed in implementing GRPB at the
local government level in Penang.
A smart partnership started in 2012 between PWDC and
the two local councils – Penang Island City Council (Majlis
Bandaraya Pulau Pinang or MBPP) and Seberang Perai
Municipal Councils (Majlis Perbandaran Seberang Perai or
MPSP) – to implement GRB in Penang.
The GRPB people-oriented model of Penang shows the
amalgamation of GRB and participatory budgeting (PB)
where the two types of budgeting processes play a comple-
mentary role to make sure gender sensitivity and inclusivity
are in place to promote gender equality and social justice.
Regina Frey, a gender expert from Berlin, makes a point
that “PB is not automatically gendered and GRB was not
originally meant to be participatory.” The GRB methodol-
ogy analyses decision-making on public expenditure in the
context of implications on gender equality and attempts
to bring development and changes that will make budgets
more gender-equal. The PB model, on the other hand,
introduces processes in which citizens can directly influ-
ence aspects of budget decision-making.
The name of the GRB project was formally changed to the
GRPB project after the Asian Regional Conference on GRB:
Transforming Institutions, Empowering Communities, which
was held in Penang in 2014. This was to reflect the due empha-
sis and importance of both approaches to budgeting. PWDC
won a special mention award at the International Observatory
on Participatory Democracy in 2014 for its innovative combi-
nation of participatory processes with gender responsive
measures through community projects. The GRPB methodol-
ogy gave people the power to play their roles as active citizens
and to become partners – not just beneficiaries – with the
local councils, especially in formulating policies and making
decisions in the key areas that affect their lives. The methodol-
ogy comprised four steps.
Step one entailed a situational analysis/needs assessment
through a survey, focus group discussions or voting on
needs and allocations. The survey was a basic demographic
survey to gather background data on the context of the
project. For the focus group discussions, five groups were
consulted to understand the needs of both women and
men. These were: children/teenagers (aged 18 and under);
Image: PWDC
Voting day at the PPR Jalan Sungai and PPR Ampangan housing project
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ender
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omen
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