Swiss grant to address gender inequality

ISLAMABAD, July 06 2005: The Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC) on July 5 provided a $626,471 grant to help analyse impact of resource allocation in both federal and provincial budgets to address the issue of gender inequality.

The project ‘Gender Responsive Budgeting Initiative’ was signed here between Swiss ambassador Denis Feldmeyer and Haoliang Xu, UNDP Resident Representative in Pakistan.

The representatives of the Ministry of Finance, Economic Affairs Division and the Ministry of Women Development were also present.

The objectives of the project are to study and assess the implications of the government spending toward addressing the needs of both women and men equitably while paying attention to the needs of the marginalized and the disabled.

Under the project, the budgets would be reviewed and analysed through a gender lens in order to better understand the role and need of women in national economy.

“We consider our support to the Gender Responsive Budgeting Initiative (GRBI) project very relevant to the need to promote equality of access to public sector expenditure in Pakistan. Moreover, GRBI is a timely initiative as it is in line with the recent decision of SDC’s management to apply gender responsive budgeting within SDC. Our support to GRBI in Pakistan is therefore, seen as a pioneering effort,” Denis Feldmeyer said.

Source: Business Recorder

Date:7/6/2005