Call for Papers: Gender-Responsive Budgeting for Gender-Equal Societies: Financing Care, Climate Action, and Women’s Economic Empowerment

The Center for Research and Policy Making and the Gender Budget Watchdog Network invite abstracts for the 3^rd GRB Community of Practice, dedicated to strengthening university–CSO collaboration for gender-equal societies. The conference will be held 25-27 August in Ohrid, Macedonia and will explore how gender-responsive budgeting can be used to transform public finance, climate finance, care systems, and access to finance for women-led businesses and women entrepreneurs.

Conference Themes

We welcome theoretical, empirical, comparative, and practice-oriented papers addressing one or more of the following themes:

1. Financing the Care Economy through Gender-Responsive Budgeting – Papers may examine how public budgets recognize, reduce, redistribute, reward, and represent care work; how investments in childcare, eldercare, long-term care, health, social protection, and care infrastructure contribute to gender equality; and how GRB can support more sustainable and inclusive care systems.
2. Gender-Responsive Climate Finance and Just Transition – Papers may explore how climate budgets, green investments, disaster risk reduction financing, energy transition policies, and adaptation measures can be assessed and redesigned through a gender lens. Contributions may address gender-sensitive climate data, climate budgeting tools, local-level climate finance, and the inclusion of women and vulnerable groups in climate-related decision-making.
3. Financing Women’s Entrepreneurship and the Women’s Economy – Papers may focus on access to finance for women entrepreneurs, women-led SMEs, start-ups, and informal or underserved businesses; the role of financial regulators and financial service providers; gender-disaggregated financial data; the WE Finance Code; and policy instruments that expand women’s economic participation.
4. University–CSO Collaboration for Gender-Equal Societies – Papers may analyze models of cooperation between academia and civil society in producing evidence, developing gender-sensitive research and data, strengthening public accountability, and translating research into advocacy, policy reform, and budget change.
5. Innovative GRB Methodologies, Tools, and Technologies – Papers may examine new approaches to gender budget analysis, expenditure tracking, gender tagging, participatory budgeting, digital tools, dashboards, AI-supported analysis, intersectional data, and other innovations that strengthen transparency and accountability for gender equality.
6. Budgeting for Well-being, Equality, and Social Justice – Papers may address how well-being economy approaches, inclusive growth frameworks, social investment, and gender-responsive fiscal policies can contribute to more equitable outcomes. Contributions may include comparative experiences, local and national case studies, and policy lessons from different regions.

Please submit an abstract of a paper under the following gender responsive budgeting themes, which is on some of the afore mentioned themes and will be no longer than 300 words, including:

• Title
• 3-8 keywords indicating paper’s subject, theme and scope
• Paper’s presenter’s email address and co-author’s email address

Important dates:

• Abstract Submission Deadline: 30.06.2026: https://forms.gle/P89U8Si2N45PkXhh9 
• Notification of Acceptance: 15.07.2026
• Conference Date: 25-27.08.2026
• Full Paper Submission Deadline: 31.10.2026.

More details about the call here.