Inhalt: "In this article the authors provide an overview of gender budgeting activities in Austria and, based on selected examples - in particular, at the federal level and in the state of Upper Austria - examine their implementation in more detail. They found that, at the federal level in Austria, there are solid legal foundations which provide for binding gender budgeting and also link it to the 'outcome- oriented budget management' introduced within the framework of budgetary reform. To date, activities related to gender budgeting at federal level have been confined to pilot projects of varying degrees of ambition and to attempts to define gender-specific outcomes. The not insignificant challenges now on the agenda include targeted strategic management of activities on the basis of experiences so far, the linking of gender budgeting and an outcome-orientation, and a gradual extension of the pilot projects to all important parts of the budget. The 'Länder' (federal states) and municipalities present a mixed picture. While in individual states - in particular, Vienna and Upper Austria - efforts have been made for a number of years to apply gender budgeting systematically, other states and the bulk of towns and municipalities are rather behindhand. All in all, there has so far really been no concrete establishment and institutionalization of gender budgeting as a central gender equality initiative in the 178 budget process. To date, analyses have concentrated mainly on particular sections of budgets. Furthermore, a key weakness of all activities in this area is that they do not progress from the phase of analysis: changes needed to enhance equality identified so far have not led to structural changes with regard to budget-policy measures at any level. The successful realization and implementation of gender budgeting requires a series of specifications and framework conditions which have so far been lacking: in particular, uniform, generally accepted quality standards for carrying out gender budgeting, as well as measures to increase participation and the establishment of a public sphere. The issues of political and administrative obligations and accountability also remain to be clarified. Moreover, the independent 'involvement' of academia and civil society is also required. The financial and economic crisis and the expected consolidation measures (budget cutbacks) serve only to enhance the importance of the topic of genderoriented budget processes." (author's abstract)