Barbados implements gender management system

Barbados is implementing a management system to track how its ministries will be handling gender equality and equity in the workplace (Photo: Anissa Thompson)

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, June 27, 2007 - Barbados will be implementing a Gender Management System to track and evaluate how its ministries and departments achieve gender equality.

Acting Director of the  Bureau of Gender Affairs, Nalita Gajadhar, said the new system will be launched Thursday.

The Gender Management System is a comprehensive network of structures, mechanisms and processes put in place within an existing organisational framework to guide, plan, monitor and evaluate the process of mainstreaming gender into all areas of work, in order to achieve greater gender equality and equity within the organisation’s context of sustainable development.

Gajadhar said that one of the targets of this island’s National Strategic Plan for 2006-2025 was the implementation of the Gender Management System by 2008.

She added that during Thursday's symposium, where the launch will occur, the 50 participants who had already been trained in gender analysis, would discuss “Gender, Human Rights and Law”, “Gender and Poverty Eradication”, “Gender and Economic Empowerment” and “Public Education”.  At the end, she added, a Plan of Action would be developed around those four indicators.

Two hundred persons here have already been trained in gender awareness and analysis. (BGIS)