Gender-friendly budgets for Ministries

GOVERNMENT is studying a proposal from Trinidad and Tobago’s women’s non-governmental organisations (NGO) to make the budgets of all its ministries more gender-friendly.

This was revealed by Community Development and Gender Affairs Minister Joan Yuille-Williams when she addressed a national consultation on the formulation of the National Gender Policy and Action Plan at the Hilton Trinidad on Friday. The Minister said Government has received proposals from several women’s NGOs which have “affirmed the need for gender budget analyses” and the need for analyses to focus on both revenue and expenditure at the national level. “The Government is deliberating a proposal of women’s NGOs to incorporate a gender perspective into the design and execution of the budget in selected Ministries. Having appropriate resources for programmes in support  of gender equality and women’s empowerment is clearly a policy being effected by this administration,” she stated.

Yuille-Williams said given rapid changes in an increasingly globalised world, terms and conditions of trade and foreign investment have also come under the scrutiny of women. “A 1999 UNIFEM study of the Gender Impact of NAFTA on Trade in TT, while not conclusive, signalled the need for attention to be given to the terms under which private foreign capital enters the country and trade takes place. It is critical to determine whether such flows reduce poverty, displace domestic industry and consequently promote or undermine women’s empowerment,” she stated. The Minister added that legal remedies for violations of international labour standards must be enforced, especially to protect low income men and women employed in the services sector.

Yuille-Williams noted that over the years the Division of Women’s Affairs in her Ministry, has been the advocate “within and beyond the State” for attention to the gender dimensions of human development. She said one of the Division’s main roles has been local promotion of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The Minister indicated that while under CEDAW there were grave liabilities for girls from the poorer social classes, “there are also troubling gender patterns emerging among boys from poor families”. Yuille-Williams added that the recommendations of the 2002 CEDAW report are being utilised by the Human Rights Unit of the Office of the Attorney-General, in collaboration with other government ministries, “to promote gender equality through policy action”.