an established definition of gender budgeting refers to a genderbased assessment of budgets incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process and restructuring revenues and expenditures in order to promote gender equality council of europe the nature and quality of these approaches appear quite variable ranging from a pro forma statement of impacts on gender equality attached to all new policies coming before government to more structured and systematic gender impact assessments a few countries reported that gender equality is mainstreamed in the sense that the responsibility rests with line ministries to advance this agenda within their respective policy domains and consequently no particular role for the budget process is envisaged as necessary