Published by the government of Zimbabwe
4 October 2007
Harare — The Ministry of Women's Affairs, Gender and Community Development will soon train senior Government officials on gender budgeting as part of efforts to make budgeting systems in various institutions gender responsive, an official has said.
Permanent Secretary Ms Perpetua Gumbo said yesterday the targeted officials would include finance directors.
"The programme is aimed at attaining gender balance development at national and local government level that equitably addresses the needs of poor women and men, girls and boys through engendering budgets," she said. She said gender budgeting was part of the gender mainstreaming process. Ms Caroline Matizha, the director of gender, said gender-based budgeting does not involve setting aside a new budget for the various gender-related programmes.
"What we are saying is that gender issues must not be addressed in isolation but must be taken into consideration together with other issues," she said. Experts say gender sensitive national budgeting is critical for gender mainstreaming and for reversing negative effects of social inequality. Gender analysis of national budget is viewed as an important measure of political will of government towards improvement of women and commitment to gender equity and equality. Ms Gumbo said the gender budgeting initiative can only be effectively implemented if the capacity of gender focal persons within various Government ministries and institutions were strengthened.
The ministry was currently running a series of workshops on gender mainstreaming for gender focal persons within various Government institutions. A five-day workshop in Kadoma this week aimed at enhancing human and institutional capacities to mainstream gender in the planning, implementation and evaluation of projects, policies and budgets was part of a series of the workshops. Participants were being familiarised with the national gender policy implementation strategy and workplan as well as gender awareness issues in the public sector policy process.
Ms Matizha said the training would in future be extended to the private sector through representative bodies such as the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce and the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries.
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