Gender Equality Committee of the Executive Yuan

The 5th meeting of Women's Rights Promotion Committee, Executive Yuan in 1999 made a resolution of “establishing domestic statistics analysis for our country as a gender-based country”. Since then, the collection of gender statistics have started. As of now, central and local governments have set up a gender statistics section and updated it regularly. “Major Gender Statistics Database” was also established to be used as a single platform for searching important gender statistics of our country. Furthermore, “Gender at a Glance” published annually presented the development trend and concerned issues of gender equality in our country in a visualized way (ANNEX B).

In order to make use of gender statistics, like quantitative and qualitative data, and further analyze the difference in the positions and reasons for different genders under the aspects of economic, social, cultural, environmental, and political structure, a gender analysis manual guide is published in 2020 (Original is in Traditional Chinese, and the abstract is in the ANNEX C). It is expected that the allocation of program resources would be adjusted or extended to other programs to handle relevant issues through the conclusion or suggestions obtained from gender analysis. This is to facilitate reasonable allocation of resources by the government, and give different genders the same access to the participation of public affairs and resources, ultimately achieving the goal of virtual gender equality.

In order to promote gender mainstreaming operation, our country, from central to local governments, has established a gender equality mechanism. The central government’s operation for 3-level meetings of Gender Equality Committee includes a work groups meeting, pre-negotiation meeting, and member meeting, while local governments run by the Women’s Rights Promotion Committee/ Gender Equality Committee, with the aid of external experts who provide advice on gender equality operation, and help incorporate six gender mainstreaming tools into the business scope of the agencies (ANNEX D).

To increase civil servants’ gender sensitivity, “Gender Mainstreaming Training Plan for Civil Servants of the Agencies” (ANNEX E) was enacted in 1994, and central departments, local agencies, and the Department of Gender Equality, Executive Yuan were integrated to compile gender mainstreaming training information and resources. Then, a “Gender Awareness Training Resources Integration Platform” was set up to increase the political officials' gender awareness and sensitivity in the public sectors.

Gender budgeting system has been promoted since 2009. The result of gender impact assessment was introduced into budgeting system, and the concept of “budget” was manifested through a “program” to facilitate effective resources allocation. Given that the approach could not reflect the situation of resource input to overall gender equality promotion, the definition of operation was revised, and trials were run in 2013. As a result, the coverage was expanded to “Gender Equality Policy Guidelines, projects of current Priority Gender Issues based on Gender Equality Policy Guidelines, promotion of gender mainstreaming tools, regulations which promote gender equality (such as Act of Gender Equality in Employment, Gender Equity Education Act, three violence prevention acts, CEDAW and its Enforcement Act), and programs, solutions, or measures which promote gender equality. After five-year trials, the system was officially enforced in 2019. (ANNEX F)

In 2021, the Executive Yuan put in place a procedure for reporting implementation of the gender budgeting in the previous year. This procedure serves to find out about implementation of the Executive Yuan's gender budgeting and its effectiveness in achieving annual gender equality goals, to respond to the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goal 5 "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls" Indicator 5.c.1 "Proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment", and to follow the concernattention to " Lack of the information about the impact and the outcomes of the gender budgeting program" from the International Review Committee of Taiwan’s 3rd CEDAW State Report of the implementation of CEDAW Committee. The Department of Gender Equality of the Executive Yuan is responsible for writingdrafting overall analysis reports for gender budgeting and implementation, and disclosing the information to the public in the gender budgeting section of the Executive Yuan Gender Equality Committee website. 

Directions for Editing and Deliberation of Medium- and Long-Term Individual Plans of Executive Yuan and Notices of Bills Submission Review for the Competent Authorities of the Executive Yuan regulate that before major medium- and long-term individual plans and bills are submitted to the Executive Yuan for review, gender impact assessment shall be conducted with a gender impact assessment checklist completed. The focal points include using gender statistics and gender analysis, analyzing quantifiable or potential phenomenon of gender inequality during the process of policy planning and evaluation, and engaging external experts/scholars in gender equality with procedure participation. These actions fully assess the enforcement results of major plans and bills in order to prevent or improve the social phenomenon of gender inequalities (more details in ANNEXES G and H).