Gender management system toolkit launch

The Commonwealth Secretariat has launched a 'Gender Management System Toolkit' to assist Commonwealth governments in ensuring that an awareness of gender issues informs their decision-making in all areas, at all levels.

The launch in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 26 January 2004 was attended by some 300 representatives of the Government of Malaysia, the National Institute of Public Administration (INTAN), the diplomatic corps, universities and non-governmental organisations.

It was followed by a three-day workshop on how to use the Gender Management System (GMS) Toolkit, held from 26 to 28 January and attended by 80 participants representing all key sectors. Malaysia's Minister of Women and Family Development, Dato' Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, and INTAN Director Dato' Dr Zulkarnain Hj. Awang, expressed the keen commitment of the Malaysian Government and INTAN to promoting gender mainstreaming.

The GMS is the Commonwealth's approach to gender mainstreaming, which is the incorporation of considerations of gender equality in all government policies and programmes. It calls for a broad-based partnership in society in which government consults and acts co-operatively with other key stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector.

At the launch, the feature address was delivered by the Minister of Women and Family Development. Nancy Spence, Director of the Secretariat's Social Transformation Programmes Division, and Dr Rawwida Baksh, Head of the Gender Section, also gave addresses.

The Toolkit is the culmination of the Secretariat's GMS series of publications, which focuses on gender mainstreaming in such key sectors as finance, development planning, the public service, legal and constitutional affairs, as well as cross-cutting development issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty eradication and the Millennium Development Goals, and gender-based violence.

A co-publication of the Secretariat and the Commonwealth of Learning, the Toolkit brings together the series of GMS manuals into a user-friendly training package. It includes a CD-Rom of all the original manuals, an Action Guide to facilitate individual learning, a Training Manual for gender trainers, and a Change Management Briefing for anyone committed to effecting gender equality through institutional change.