Document(s) 2 of 13

Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Development Goals: A Handbook for Policy-makers and Other Stakeholders forms a timely inclusion into the Commonwealth Secretariat series on gender mainstreaming in critical multisectoral development issues. It is hoped that it will be used by development policy-makers, planners and others, in conjunction with other publications relating to particular national contexts.

In 1996, the Commonwealth Ministers Responsible for Women’s/Gender Affairs mandated the Commonwealth Secretariat to develop the concept and methodology of the Gender Management System (GMS), a holistic system-wide approach to bringing a gender perspective to bear in the mainstream of all government policies, plans and programmes.

The success of the GMS depends on a broad-based partnership in society in which government consults and acts co-operatively with other key stakeholders, who include civil society and the private sector. The task of gender mainstreaming has both technical and managerial dimensions, as well as the political, economic and socio-cultural aspects of creating equality and equity between women and men as partners in the quest for social justice.

At the Sixth Meeting of Commonwealth Ministers Responsible for Women’s/Gender Affairs (6WAMM), held in April 2000 in New Delhi, India, Ministers commended the GMS series. They encouraged the Gender Section of the Commonwealth Secretariat to continue the development of user-friendly publications adaptable to the different needs of member countries. This handbook is designed to fulfil that request.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted by the world’s Heads of Governments/States at a special United Nations summit in 2000, include quantified and monitorable goals for development and poverty eradication by 2015. One of these goals is the empowerment of women. In the Coolum Declaration of March 2002, Commonwealth Heads of Government endorsed the Millennium Development Goals, and announced their determination to work to eliminate poverty

and to promote people-centred sustainable development. They also declared that “in too many societies women continue to face discrimination” (Coolum Declaration, 5 March 2002).

We in the Commonwealth feel that gender equality is essential to eradicating poverty. The MDs can only be achieved by addressing the disproportionate burden of poverty, lack of access to education and health services and lack of productive opportunities borne by women. Women’s empowerment matters for poverty eradication. Evidence shows that empowering and investing in women brings a huge development dividend.

We trust that the publication of this handbook and its implementation by policy-makers and other stakeholders will make a contribution to eradicating poverty by highlighting the need for a gender perspective of greater reach than that envisioned in the MDGs.

The development of this book has been a collective effort of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Social Transformation Programmes Division and many individuals and groups. Their contributions are most gratefully acknowledged.

The publication of this book was possible thanks to contributions from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

I would also like to thank our colleagues from the multilateral and bilateral agencies, academic institutions and NGOs, who participated in the Expert Panel at the Commonwealth Secretariat in December 2001, to review the first draft. Thanks are due to Randy Spence of IDRC, who participated in the Expert Panel in December 2001 to review the first draft, and Bill Carman of IDRC for his editorial advice. We are also grateful to Diana Rivington of CIDA, and to Beatrice Mann of the International Labour Organization (ILO) who supplied us with many of the photographs.

This handbook is an adaptation of an extended book by Naila Kabeer provisionally entitled Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Development Goals: Maximising Synergies and Minimising Trade-offs, to be published jointly by the Commonwealth Secretariat and Routledge in autumn 2003. Readers may wish to refer to the full text contained within the Routledge publication for greater depth and elaboration of

some of the more complex arguments developed in this handbook.

Our special thanks to Tina Johnson who has worked wonders in adapting the manuscript for use as a handbook, and to Rawwida Baksh-Soodeen who initiated the project, co-ordinated the team and resources, and worked closely with Naila Kabeer to bring the project to fruition. We would also like to thank Rahul Malhotra who assisted Naila in the compilation of statistics used in this book.

And last but not least, to the author, Dr Naila Kabeer, who continues to inspire us by her conceptual thinking that garners real results, her compassion towards women’s economic and social realities as she sees them on the ground, and her ability to harness rigorous economic analysis and devote it to making the lives of women better.

This handbook is being launched at the UN during the 47th meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), in celebration of International Women’s Day (8 March 2003) and Commonwealth Day (10 March 2003). We do hope that it will contribute to better understanding of the critical linkages between women’s empowerment, poverty eradication and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). And importantly, to greater co-ordination and synergy in all our efforts to promote gender equality in poverty eradication programmes and the MDGs.

Nancy Spence
Director, Social Transformation Programmes Division
Commonwealth Secretariat
March 2003

Document(s) 2 of 13