PESHAWAR, Jan 4: The activities of the Women Development Cell (WDC), set up more than a year ago, have come to a standstill due to lack of capacity and numerous other problems, according to an official.

The WDC, set up to monitor and coordinate projects under the proposed Gender Reform Action Plan (Grap) is a living example of the “bureaucratic status quo” as it remains to be made operational, claimed the official.

Departmental hurdles in advertising for its vacancies is one reason for the delay in its being made operational, said the source. Ten positions –including gender analyst, gender specialist and office assistants – were created, but the establishment and general administration department (E&GAD) did not let the social welfare and women’s development department advertise for the posts. Now, the social welfare and women’s development department has placed an advertisement for the WDC.

The provincial government has allocated Rs13 million for the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for women’s development and wants to bring into operation the cell but not enough has been done, said another official.

The Grap was initially funded by the Asian Development Bank, while the federal and provincial governments were responsible for its implementation.

The cell was set up to implement the Grap which recommended employing women in the public sector, their political participation and capacity development, said the sources.

The federal and provincial governments of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan governments have approved the Grap, while the NWFP government has not done so due to financial constraints, revealed the sources.

Neither the Grap was approved nor the Women Development Cell began functioning even after the lapse of a great deal of time, added the sources. The provincial government is deprived of appropriate funding due to which few good schemes could not be launched, some others complained.

The cell was supposed to coordinate and monitor projects related to women development and their welfare policy. Grap is one policy issue between the federal and provincial governments. The later needs resources in initial years but the former has not responded as yet, they said.

Though the WDC officially began working in April of 2005, but it is still without a gender specialist who could head it.

It is presently run by an analyst who was Section Officer in the establishment department. She, too, has lost interest and is unable to do anything because of the scant staff, sources further said.