[women-rights] Council of Europe takes gender budgeting into account

Strasbourg 08.11.2006 -- Council of Europe Deputy Secretary General Maud
de Boer-Buquicchio will take part in an international conference on
"gender budgeting" organised by the Nordic Council of Ministers and hosted
by the Finnish Ministry of Finance in Helsinki on 8-9 November.

This conference will present ongoing initiatives and experiences gained in
Nordic countries to integrate a gender perspective in the budgetary
process and carry out strategy to achieve real gender equality.

Budgets are not neutral. There is a need to incorporate a gender
perspective at all levels of the budgetary process and restructure
revenues and expenditures to promote gender equality.

The Council of Europe developed the first and only example of definition
of gender budgeting. Nordic examples of gender budgeting will be also be
highlighted at the conference, including ongoing programmes, such as a
gender impact assessment guidebook and integrating gender in government
budgets.

This Conference is linked to the follow-up of the 6th European ministerial
Conference on Equality between Women and Men, whose main theme was "Gender
analysis and gender budgeting: tools for economic development".

The Nordic Council of Ministers, formed in 1971, is the forum for Nordic
governmental co-operation and recently completed a report on gender
budgeting. Other Nordic government officials will take part in the
conference at The White Hall, Aleksanterinkatu 16-18, along with Dalia
Grybauskaitč, European Union Commissioner for Financial Programming and
Budget.