Maja Bosnic: Putting beneficiaries at the centre of government budgets

Public finance management is not a subject that many people gravitate towards, but Maja Bosnic is a fan. With both a BA and Masters in Economics, she has always been drawn to the challenge of breaking down the complexity of the myriad rules, systems, and processes behind public revenue and spending. Her work on gender responsive budgeting (GRB) has therefore been particularly rewarding.

“I have spent many years in public finance, but it was only when I started working with gender and social aspects that I realised how we can actually improve budget decisions by making them gender responsive. GRB not only contributes to the realisation of de-facto gender equality, but it also makes budgets better because prioritisation is based on real needs and funds are more targeted. It is amazing to see what kind of difference economists can make when we understand the needs of beneficiary. I just wish we had started this sooner,” Maja says.

Where it all began

Hailing from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and holding also Croatian citizenship, Maja speaks English, Russian, and French in addition to her native Bosnian and Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Montenegrin variations. Her career in development started in 1999 following the end of the war in BiH when she worked as an economist in international projects both in BiH and the region.

Her passion for GRB was kick-started during a DFID-funded project working with the Ministries of Finance in BiH on the introduction of performance budgeting. From there, she became the UN Women Country Manager for BiH on a GRB project and has worked frequently for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, consulting on public finance and GRB in the Caribbean as well as Asian countries.

As a counter balance to working life, Maja trained as an artistic gymnastic for 10 years and taught aerobics and pilates for 15 years. “Pilates and yoga are almost as big a passion as gender budgeting,” Maja jokes. 

"NIRAS has a lot of respect for the needs of the countries where it works and especially for local staff experience. I like the fact that we are making the change together and listening to the needs of our partners."

Achievements to be proud of

Maja firmly believes GRB is the future of budgeting and public finance, and her work in the Ukraine as team leader for the Sida project has put the country – as a leader in GRB – on the map of progressive reform of public finance.

“Thanks to a close cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, we managed to put gender issues in the same arena as budget decision-making,” she says, adding proudly.“Over the last five years, we have contributed to the improvement of more than 200 budget programmes, through our involvement in allocation decisions on real needs. We have more patients tested for HIV and tuberculosis, more girls practicing sport, and most importantly a whole army of Ukrainians advocating for gender budgeting and teaching about GRB as result of our work.”

Indeed, the Ministry of Finance’s first order of 2019 was focused on GRB and directed at all ministries. This means that all institutions will now learn to analyse and improve their budget programmes, ensuring they are adapted to meet the needs of women and men in different positions across Ukrainian society.

Maija together with Martin Hagström, Ambassador of Sweden to Ukraine and Ukrainian Finance Minister Oksana Markarova. 

A sense of belonging

Having worked with a large number of consultancy organisations throughout her career usually in the role of a “local” expert, Maja is a good judge of “the NIRAS way”. She explains, “NIRAS has a lot of respect for the needs of the countries where it works and especially for local staff experience. I like the fact that we are making the change together and listening to the needs of our partners. Having learned in the past not to offer solutions to problems I do not understand, I really appreciate that approach.

“There is also a lot of trust among colleagues in NIRAS as well as a general common-sense approach to project management and decision-making. From the outset, I felt the colleagues at NIRAS supported me and the project team. Catharina Schmitz (Director for Gender & Human Rights and Director of the GRB Project) was a great mentor and other colleagues were always there when we needed to make tough decisions – administratively or related to the topic.

"It wasn’t easy moving to Ukraine with a young family just as the war broke out in 2014, so I really appreciated feeling part of the NIRAS family right from the start.”

* Update June 2020: Maija is now Business Development Director for Governance and Democracy at NIRAS International Consulting and is currently based in Sweden.