ISLAMABAD, May 24: The federal cabinet in its meeting on Wednesday is likely to approve women development ministry’s Gender Reform Action Plan (GRAP), Dawn has learnt. GRAP seeks gender equality in four key areas: Political, administrative and institutional reforms; in public sector employment; policy and fiscal reforms.

The plan talks about mainstreaming of gender equality perspective across public policies, laws, programmes and projects by various organs and agencies of government, ensuring that women’s interests and needs are adequately represented in public policy formulation and related programmes.

The federal ministry of women development in consultation with the provincial women development departments, worked out one national and four provincial Gender Reform Action Plans, which had already been cleared by the national steering committee in January 2004, sources in the ministry told Dawn.

The steering committee comprised parliamentarians from major political parties, provincial women ministers, representative from key federal ministries, selected NGOs and donor agencies, they said.

The review and consultative process for Gender Reform Action Plan, an Asian Development Bank’s technical assistance project, took 14 long month.

Once approved by the federal and provincial cabinets, GRAPs will be implemented under decentralization support programme of the finance ministry.

The women development ministry will be the national focal machinery for implementation of national GRAP, while the provincial women development miniseries will implement their respective GRAPs.

The GRAP proposes a coherent gender reform agenda to align policies, structures and procedures for enabling the government to implement its national and international commitments on gender equality. These reforms will enhance participation of women across the governance spheres at the federal, provincial and district levels.

Approval of Gender Reform Action Plan and its successful implementation requires persistent political, policy and financial support, the source said. “We hope that all of the ministries, civil society organizations and donors will join us in solidarity to promote the cause of gender equality in the country through this initiative,” officials said.

It will also help develop close collaboration with legal, judicial, law-enforcement and other relevant governmental and non-governmental agencies to facilitate women’s access to formal legal and justice system.

GRAP will be implemented in four years and in two consecutive phases of two years each.