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The budget presentation: it's one of the biggest political, parliamentary and media events of every year. Coming sometime between January and March, the budget is celebrated by the government, dissed by the Opposition and dissected by the media. The process between presentation, discussion, debate and approval takes weeks: that's hours of talk, many minutes on the news, and much ink in the newspaper but in all that time, does anyone really get it? The Women's Issues Network thinks many who should, don't and that's why this morning it launched a book called understanding the budget.

It breaks down the budget in a meaningful way and examines how the numbers and figures in there impact social and economic development, with particular emphasis on women's development. Executive Director of the Women's Issue Network Carolyn Reynolds says the book will serve as a resource document for everyone to understand what the budget means when it's all broken down.

Carolyn Reynolds,
"We see the need for civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations including the community to understand what the budget is so we can have a voice and helping to not really make decisions but helping the government to make the decisions in programs that are not being used for, programs that are cut, that we can have some kind of input.

The report has what the training that we did, the processes of the budget, the impact it has, and also looking at it from a gender perspective. And when I say gender I mean how it impacts the different people within the communities; how it impacts men, women, children. So not only looking at women, although most of the programs are geared towards women that are being cut and so that is what we want to understand."

WIN Belize will distribute the book throughout schools and among other interested organizations. It was compiled with input from a panel of experts in governance and development.