Gender and Economic Reform

"Gender and Economic Reform" clarifies the complex relationship between gender and the way economies operate. It contends that incorporating gender analysis into the design and implementation of economic reform helps to promote the emergence of economies that grow sustainably, in ways that reduce gender inequalities rather than reinforce them. The analysis is particularly relevant in the current context in which gender equality is a proclaimed Millennium Development Goal and the Monterrey Consensus calls for gender sensitive programming. The paper is meant to improve policy makers’ ability to dialogue on what the relevant links might be between gender and economic reform and how to take gender into account in designing and implementing reform programmes. Throughout the document, a number of tools for integrating gender equality into economic policy analysis and decision-making at the national or sector-wide levels are presented. These tools focus on producing a new shared understanding of underlying economic and social relations in order to promote the achievement of a gender-balanced path of economic growth. The document is based on a large body of secondary material written over the past decade by gender specialists and other experts led by Professor Diane Elson et al. on behalf of the former Task Force on Gender and Economic Reform. It includes a summary of key concepts contained in six documents issued by the DAC Working Party on Gender Equality as Workshop Documents Nos. 1 to 6 (OECD 1998). It comes as a complement to the work conducted by that group on gender and sector-wide approaches and will be particularly useful in the light of ongoing work on gender-sensitive budgeting...