The gender assessment conducted in Macedonia attempts to analyze the implementation of the social policy at the local level in three municipalities by identifying to what extent those policies reflect the local needs of men and women, and whether the measures they propose will advance gender equality. The assessment aims to enhance the debate on gender equality issues, and to enable individuals, organizations, policy makers and policy analysts to effectively participate in the development of approaches which would increase the gender responsiveness of social policies.

This fact sheet was produced by UNIFEM in 2007 under the UNIFEM sub -regional programme "Gender-Responsive Budgeting in South East Europe: Advancing Gender Equality and Democratic Governance through Increased Transparency and Accountability launched in late 2006. The programme includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Serbia. In the Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia, UNIFEM carried out a needs assessment of the budgetary processes and public finance reforms in October 2006.

The subject of this analysis is the budget process in the Republic of Macedonia (RM), with emphasis on the reforms of budget policies in terms of gender equality and determining entrance points for integration of the gender into the budgeting process. The analysis focused on reviewing the Budget of RM for 2009, 2010 and 2011, with a description of the budgeting process and a review of the reforms of the budget process towards the implementation of programorientedbudgeting.