There were calls at the meeting yesterday of Common-wealth Finance Ministers to ensure that Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRBs) is taken seriously and for finance ministries to be given assistance to take the lead role in the process as urged by Commonwealth women’s affairs ministers.
During the closed session, Stabroek News understands that India, Zambia and Mauritius delivered remarks on the paper that formed the report by the Social Transformation Pro-gramme Division (STIPD) in collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat and all three agreed that GRB is important and should not be on the backburner.
The report being considered was called the Gender-Responsive Budgets in the Commonwealth Progress Report: 2005-2007. In the 2005 CFMM, the ministers had agreed for a biennial report after “recognizing the critical importance of gender-responsive budgets (GRBs),” stated the executive summary.
This was item seven on the agenda of the third plenary for the Finance Ministers at the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting (CFMM) that ended yesterday at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC) at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.
At the Eighth Common-wealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting held in Kampala, Uganda, in mid-June, the communiqu
