Budgets and Barriers Rethinking Inclusive Girls Education Financing in Pakistan

With over 13 million girls still out of school in Pakistan, this policy brief argues that budgets are rarely designed with girls in mind: allocations are seldom gender-disaggregated, the needs of girls and girls with disabilities go untracked, and when schools are too distant, facilities inadequate, or costs too high, girls are the first to be withdrawn. Drawing on national budget data and lived testimony from SAQE’s town halls across the country, it reframes this as a financing failure and sets out gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) as the foundation for inclusive education, offering policymakers, donors, and advocates a practical roadmap for turning budgets into instruments of equity rather than exclusion.