Despite this trivial importance, economists of the country use the eve of the announcement of the budget for their space in electronic and non-electronic media to give their "expert" opinion. Not only Bangladesh Economic Association (probably the second most vibrant professional association in the country, assuming the first one is the Lawyers' Association) but also individual economists arranged seminars, press conferences, and symposiums to give their opinion. In most cases they point out what is missing in the budget.

The budget has two sides; income and expenditure. The finance ministry has to make an educated approximation about the total available income including the foreign help for the next financial year. Given that income, finance minister decides the sectoral expenditure for the next year. In most cases, economists mainly criticize the expenditure side of the budget without shedding any light on how the total income of the government can be increased also. Such increase is required to increase the sectoral allocations.

The nation would benefit more if the economists could point out how different is the revised budget from the originally announced one, so people could understand the degree of digression of the government from her original commitment. Most importantly, rather than just criticizing different sectoral allocations, the economists could present a clear alternative expenditure scheme which they think is more appropriate for the country.

That is yet to be accomplished in Bangladesh. This is not to deny that sometimes economists correctly point out the fundamental shortcoming of an announced expenditure scheme. But in many cases, economists' criticism of the budget is based on rhetoric or shabby ideology, rather than any simulation by using any macroeconomic model.

As it always happens, the announcement of this year's budget was also followed by a number of press conferences, seminars and public talks. A wide range of opinions have been expressed by the economists, retired bureaucrats, and NGO bodies. They have equivocally and rightly criticized the allocations that can easily be misused or appropriated by the ministers or can be used to win the political target of the government. Besides that, the experts, as they always do, also criticized the sectoral allocations for not being congruent with the socio-economic imperatives of the country.

Any socio-economic imperative is based on ideology, information, or popular demand. Possibly one of the popular demands, at least among the urban elites, is that the budget has to be gender-friendly. A number of seminars have been organized to highlight that the announced budget is not gender-friendly. The main criticism is based on the "empowerment paradigm of development economics" and points out that enough fund has not been allocated to promote women's empowerment.

But it is not money but policy which is more important for empowerment. So the criticism of the financial budget in the context of empowerment does not make enough sense. Also, the highest emphasis on the need for a gender-friendly budget may imply that Bangladesh is doing poorly in terms of gender gap or women's empowerment. But that is not the case, as I will explain below.

A number of micro studies have been conducted on gender gap or women empowerment by local and foreign experts as the donor has always a very soft corner for gender balance in Bangladesh. Of course, what is care in our culture, sometimes seem to be a chain for women in donor's eyes. These studies, being micro in nature, do not provide any aggregate pictures of women empowerment of the country. Possibly, the only source of information for a comparative analysis and cross country comparison of women's empowerment is the indices published by World Economic Forum (2005). Is the loud and desperate cry for a gender-friendly budget warranted on the basis of that report?

Let's focus on the current situation of the women empowerment in Bangladesh. The report estimated a composite index of gender gap by using 5 individual parameters that include women's economic participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment, and health and well-being. It ranked 58 countries of the world on the basis of this index. The list includes mostly the developed countries, and Bangladesh has the lowest per capita GDP among them.

The countries "that have succeeded best in narrowing the gap are the Nordic countries, with Sweden standing out as the most advanced in the world. These are followed by New Zealand (rank, 6), Canada (7), United Kingdom (8), Germany (9), and Australia (10), countries that have made considerable progress in recent decades in removing obstacles to the full participation of women in their respective societies. France (13) ranked ahead of the United States (17) among the 58 nations."

Bangladesh ranks 39 and outranks a number of European and other developed countries. The ranking of our neighbouring country India is 53. "Out of the seven predominantly Muslim nations covered by the study, Bangladesh (39) and Malaysia (40) outperform Indonesia (46), while Jordan (55), Pakistan (56), Turkey (57), and Egypt (58) occupy the bottom four ranks."

Being influenced by Amartya Sen's compelling case for the notion that societies need to see women less as passive recipients of help, and more as dynamic promoters of social transformation, the report also estimated an index for women's economic participation. In estimating this index, they use women's participation in labour force and the wage gap between male and female workers for similar works.

In this category the ranking of Bangladesh is 18, whereas the ranking of the US is 19. Therefore, the recent emphasis on the gender-friendly budget by the well-known economists, NGO workers and development practitioners should not disregard that despite many economic and social problems, Bangladesh is doing much better than many countries in terms women's economic participation.

Of course our performance in the category of women's economic opportunity is not very impressive. But this index is based on the existing public policy like maternity leave and benefit policy, and availability of childcare facilities etc. The poor index of the economic opportunity implies not any increase in allocation of funds but the implementation of new policies to help the women to be involved in economic activities. In terms of political empowerment of women, the ranking of Bangladesh is 42. In terms of educational attainment, and health and well-being the ranking is 37. Given our level of development, and per capita GDP, these performances are way better than expected.

Achieving gender equality or a gender friendly environment, however, is a slow process, since it challenges one of the most deeply entrenched of all human attitudes. It takes far more than allocation of funds in gender friendly sectors, whatever they are. An announced budget should not be held responsible and criticized for everything of our social and economic life. The problem of gender should not be conceived as an independent problem; rather it is an integral part of our overall problem of lawlessness, discrimination against class, and insensitiveness to poverty and hunger, and requires changes in law or stated policy, and practices in the home also which can be accomplished through education of not only female but also male. A gender friendly environment is not constrained mainly by the inadequate allocation of funds in the gender-friendly sectors. For example, rape or violence against women of all kinds reflect poor law and order situation, not a gender unfriendly environment as such. Prevention of sexual slavery and forced prostitution requires the overall improvement of law and order and judicial reform.

There is no doubt that the whole idea of gender balance or gender friendly environment is very noble. Our ethical and moral standard always guides us to see a world where people should not be discriminated on the basis of sex, race, or colour. Therefore this is also very popular demand to accomplish. But before criticizing a financial budget for its alleged failure to be gender friendly, a social scientist have to think: (i) if a mere increase in government allocation is the main constraint for achieving it, and (ii) whether it should be number one priority of the government to allocate funds.

It appears to me that gender-friendly budget card is growingly being overplayed to criticize the budget of the country; consequently other more important things are overlooked. For example, it cannot be denied that foreign investment is the only way to foster our economic growth. The invest climate of our country is one of the worst in the world (see World Development Report 2005). Therefore, to materialize the committed foreign investment by different foreign investors and also to attract more in future, the current budget should have reflected on the improvement of the investment climate.

Unfortunately, the budget lacks this vision, and so do most of the critics of the budget. It is well established in academia that the society of Bangladesh has accomplished a very productive normative change regarding women's right and gender equality. This accomplishment is the outcome of micro-finance and NGO activities. With this change, the benefit of economic growth will be distributed in a less skewed manner across sexes.

So our budget now should focus mainly on the growth of income, so that economic condition of all, regardless of male or female can be ameliorated. If the budget fails to do it, and the economists remain over focused with equality in a microscopic standard across sexes, then every body's share is doomed to see no real increase in future.

Md. Abul Basher is a Visiting Assistant Professor, Willamette University, Oregon, US.