South Africa: Govt Must Fund Gender Programmes

January 17, 2008 – (AllAfrica) Government should channel finances towards gender equality and women's empowerment programmes, says Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.

Addressing the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on Wednesday, she said generating finances should be seen as one of the major tools for reducing inequality between men and women. The minister emphasised that gender responsive budgets were not separate budgets for women, but are general budgets that are planned, approved, executed, monitored and audited in a gender sensitive way.

According to Minister Moleketi, the ultimate goal of gender budgeting is achieving gender equality and equity. "We know that women and men have different time-use patterns. It is a well established fact that women spend more hours than men doing unpaid work, while men conversely spend more hours doing paid work. "Financing for gender equality must take into account these differences in the roles of men and women, but not only with a view to supporting women to do care work better, but to also change the relations between men and women," she said.

The 51st session of the CSW took place from 26 February to 9 March 2007. The Commission considered "The Elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child" as its priority theme at the session. The CSW which was established in 1946 and is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council which prepares recommendations and reports to the council, promoting women's rights in the political, economic, civil, social and educational fields.

The CSW also makes recommendations to the council on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field of women's rights.

From:http://allafrica.com/stories/200801170123.html