Accra, May 5, GNA - A three-day review training programme on Gender Planning and Budgeting for departments and agencies under the Ministry of Trade and Industry opened on Tuesday in Accra with a call on participants to chart a path to achieve the target of gender mainstreaming in the ministry and the nation at large.

Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, John Gentuah, said a key benefit a nation could derive from gender mainstreaming included achieving equality, equity, advancing the realisation of women's rights and alleviating poverty.

He said this could also enhance economic efficiency, achieving good governance, accountability and transparency as well as a tool for monitoring the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.

Gender mainstreaming is the process of assessing the implication for men and women of any planned action, including legislation, policies and programmes in all areas and at all levels of government endeavours.

Mr Gentuah said gender mainstreaming could not be overemphasised especially in times where there were unlimited opportunities and varying needs competing for limited resources.

The programme, which started in 2007 would be reviewed and is expected to become a steppingstone to making real progress in integrating gender into the ministry's policies, programmes and projects.

Underscoring the importance of gender budgeting, Mr Gentuah said the UN had taken the lead role by being at the forefront of all World Conferences on Women as well as hosting the UN General Assembly Session on Women in June 2002.

The conference, he said, called on nations to mainstream gender perspective into key macroeconomic, socio-economic and national development programmes.

Australia was the first country to develop a gender-sensitive budget in 1984 followed by South Africa in 1995.

He explained that a gender budget was not a separate budget for women but rather a decision of government to establish its gender-differential impacts and to translate them into budgetary commitment.

Mr Okyere Darko Ababio, Director, Recruitment, Training and Development of the Office of the Head of Civil Service, said the new focus of the Civil Service was to ensure that every civil servant was trained for a minimum of 40 hours in a year to ensure that they offered quality services to clients and lifted the image of the service.