Manual for monitoring and evaluating youth policies and strategies by applying the principles and methods of gender-responsive budgeting serves as an educational, practical and informative resource to be used primarily by young men and women included in the process of creating, monitoring and analysing youth strategies by monitoring and analysing allocated budget funds, but also by all who wish to improve their knowledge and skills for starting and implementing a gender-responsive budgeting initiative.
The Manual consists of four sections:
• Section 1: Youth policy, providing an overview of indicators which represent the elements recommended or developing a national youth policy, and which can also be applied on a local level; definitions of youth strategy and youth policy, legal framework of adopted youth policies and strategies, and a detailed overview of the process of developing a youth strategy on a local level.
• Section 2: Youth and gender equality, roviding a more elaborate explanation of the role of gender equality in strategic approaches to youth problems and issues, offering basic information on the budget and the budgetary process in the three observed ountries, and introducing the concept of gender mainstreaming and gender-responsive budgeting as its constituent part, with explanations of the concept, features, advantages and importance for youth strategies.
• Section 3: Methods, instruments and tools of gender-responsive budgeting, being the main section of the manual, provides detailed descriptions and explanations of the most commonly used approaches, instruments and ethods for gender-responsive budgeting, with examples pertinent to the areas where a strategic approach to youth is employed; giving an overview of the characteristics of gender-responsive budgeting, including examples from European, on-European and regional practice, and, finally, a system of monitoring and evaluation tailored for gender-responsive budgeting in youth strategies.
• Section 4: Practical application of gender-responsive budgeting in outh policies and strategies, providing numerous examples of analyses, checklists, programs and matrices for practical application in the process of gender-responsive budgeting in different areas and on different levels.