Priority budgeting: Selected country practices and an evaluation on Turkey

Priority budgeting is an effort to focus resources on a specific objective and to achieve higher level results through budget cycle tools. In this context, more inclusive approaches such as gender budgeting to prioritize gender equality and green budgeting for climate change and environment priorities have recently been adopted. Within this framework, the aim of this study is to identify the basic principles of these budget approaches and to analyze the situation in Turkey. As a result of the assessments made, it was found that budget programs in Turkey do not emphasize gender equality sufficiently and gender- based policies remain limited in policy priorities. In this framework, there is a need for public administrations to integrate gender perspective into policy-making and budgeting processes, raise awareness and produce gender-sensitive data and statistics. In terms of green budget, it was found that budget programs take into account sustainable climate and environment targets; however, the targets set were not achieved. It was concluded that budget programs should adopt green budget principles, resources should be directed to green projects, climate policies should be implemented effectively, a green labeling system should be implemented to identify environmental impacts in Turkey and audit mechanisms should be strengthened.