Excellencies,
Distinguished participants,
Representatives of United Nations agencies.

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all very warmly to this sub-regional training workshop on gender-sensitive national planning and budgeting. I regret that my duties in the Division for the Advancement of Women prevent me from joining you in this very important event.

I wish to extend my deep appreciation to the Government of Mali for hosting the workshop. Mali has for many years been a strong advocate for gender equality. I am particularly grateful to Her Excellency Mme. Ba Odette Yattara, Minister for the Advancement of Women, Children and Family, for her unwavering support to gender equality and the advancement of women, and to her staff for all the support provided during the preparation and organization of the workshop. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on the recent election of a national of Mali, Mme. Fatoumata Dembele Diarra, to the International Criminal Court. I also extend my thanks to the Minister of the Economy and Finance, the Vice Minister of Planning, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other government officials, as well as members of the Parliament who are here with us today, for your interest in the workshop. I am confident that your support and active participation will significantly contribute to its successful conduct, and the subsequent comprehensive implementation of its results in your planning and budgeting processes.

I am delighted to welcome the participants from Cameroon, Guinea, Mauritania, Morocco and Tchad who have traveled to Bamako to attend this workshop. The high level of Government officials selected for participation, including the presence of the Minister for Women’s Affairs from Guinea, confirms the commitment of your Governments and well as your own, to enhance attention to gender perspectives in all realms of governmental work. Your collective experience, insights and expertise are the best guarantee for a stimulating and enriching event.

I extend a warm welcome to representatives of UN entities, and especially Mme. Jocelline Bazile-Finley, UNDP Resident Representative in Mali and her staff, for the kind collaboration in the organization of this workshop. I am especially happy that Ms. Josephine Ouedraogo, Director of the African Centre for Women of the Economic Commission for Africa, was able to take time out from her busy schedule to join this workshop. I personally look forward to welcoming her in New York next week for inter-agency meetings as well as the annual session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Last but not least, I would like to welcome the most capable team of facilitators who will guide you through these four days of work.

Distinguished participants,
The United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) is responsible for supporting intergovernmental bodies in the follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and its review session of 2000. Our small technical cooperation programme is an important part of our work and is directly linked to our responsibilities for normative, analytical and policy development. As part of this effort, we work with national machineries for the advancement of women to enhance their capacity to implement the commitments of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the outcome document of its 2000 review session, and to act as catalysts for gender mainstreaming within their Governments. Funded through the Development Account of the United Nations, we continue implementation of a project on “Capacity Building for National Machineries for the Advancement of Women in Promoting Gender Equality in African Countries”. Eleven pilot countries are at present targeted under this project. This week’s workshop on gender-sensitive national planning and budgeting is an important element in achieving the overall objectives of the project.

The Division convened a first workshop on this same topic in December 2001 in Tanzania, with the participation of representatives from 5 Anglophone pilot countries, namely Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda and Swaziland. This second workshop here in Mali targets the six Francophone pilot countries of the project. I am very pleased that a Rwandan participant from the Tanzania workshop has joined us to ensure the link and continuity between the two events, as you will be able to benefit from results and lessons learned at the earlier workshop.

Distinguished participants,
Efforts to bring gender perspectives to bear on national development planning and budgeting predate the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women. In order to influence the actual formulation of the budget in a way that supports the gender equality goal, it is critical to ensure that gender equality is explicitly addressed already at the planning stages – when national development priorities are discussed and identified. An important basis for such gender-sensitive planning is an understanding of existing gender relations, and capacity to address these gender-based differences and inequalities in policies and programmes with a view to promoting gender equality. Planned policies and programmes must be analyzed to determine any differential impact on women and men, and adjusted accordingly before decisions are taken so as to ensure that they support the achievement of the gender equality goal. Gender-sensitive budgeting is a tool to hold those responsible for national development planning accountable to gender equality commitments by ensuring that such commitments are matched with adequate resource allocations.

The workshop you are about to begin aims to sensitize key stakeholders - Government officials of national machineries for the advancement of women and of national planning and budgeting agencies or offices – to the links between your Governments’ gender equality objectives and other development objectives. You will be reviewing tools and techniques for gender-sensitive planning and budgeting, and efforts will be made to develop a national strategy to institutionalize the integration of gender perspectives in these processes. While political leadership, as well as the skills and commitments of individuals, are critical, sustainability of gender-sensitive planning processes also depends essentially on the institutional capacity of all relevant offices. The catalytic role of national machineries in this undertaking deserves priority attention.

Participants will have opportunity to discuss and design follow-up mechanisms, at the national as well as sub-regional level, to ensure the successful institutionalisation of gender-sensitive national planning and budgeting within your own Governments.

The workshop will benefit from participants’ country presentations on current planning and budgeting processes and structures. These will be an important basis for identifying further entry points, as well as for developing mechanisms to involve all relevant stakeholders. You will have opportunity to share your experiences, benefit from the views of your colleagues, sharpen existing skills, and acquire new skills to make you more effective in your tasks. I trust that the participatory approach chosen for this workshop will ensure maximum benefit for all and contribute to what I believe will be most interesting discussions.

I wish you success and fruitful results of your deliberations.