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Preface
Equal participation of women and men in all aspects of society is crucial for lastinggrowth and democracy. This ambitious goal, however, is far from being a realitydespite substantial progress over the last five decades. The root cause of the problemlies in the social structures, institutions, values and beliefs which create and perpetuatethe imbalance between women and men. The issue is not how to “add” women tovarious processes but to reshape these processes to create the space for women’s andmen’s involvement.
Gender mainstreaming was established as a global strategy for the promotion of gender equality in the Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference onWomen. Gender Mainstreaming focuses on gender roles and relationships rather thanon women only; it is designed to ensure that women and men have access to projectresources and services, in relation to their actual responsibilities. Mainstreaming canreveal a need for changes in goals, strategies and actions to ensure that both womenand men can influence, participate in and benefit from development processes. Gendermainstreaming is the integration of the gender perspective into every step of policyprocesses - design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation -with a view topromoting equality between women and men.Gender mainstreaming is an important aspect of good governance. It seeks to ensure thatinstitutions, policies and programs respond to the needs and interests of women as well asmen, and distribute benefits equitably between women and men. It contributes to social,economic and cultural progress. It leads to greater fairness, equity and justice for womenand men, thus enhancing the accountability of governments to achieve results for allcitizens. While mainstreaming is clearly essential for securing human rights and social justice for women as well as men, it also increasingly recognized that incorporatinggender perspectives in different areas of development ensures the effective achievementof other social and economic goals. Mainstreaming can reveal a need for changes ingoals, strategies and actions to ensure that both women and men can influence,participate in and benefit from development processes.Although government agencies such as a national women’s machinery may provide theinitial impetus for gender mainstreaming activities, these strategies will not be effectiveor sustainable if individuals and groups within a society do not understand the importanceof the change being sought. Civil society has an important role to play in to fulfill itscommitment to gender mainstreaming.Keeping the above in view Syndicate for Gender Mainstreaming has under taken a studyto critically examine the efforts of government as well as efforts of Civil Societyinstitution for gender mainstreaming in development process. This is the first report of
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can i get a soft copy of your articvle. i am a msc student in cardiff uni, u.k. am in desperate need for academic work on GM in India. My e mail id is rc_subhajit@yahoo.com
may i ask for soft copy? zaidiyah@googlemail.com. I need it to develop gender policy in my institution, so i thik i should read it for reference