31 July 2004

ECA Becomes Member of The International Working Group on Gender Through its African Center for Gender and Development

By: Houda Mejri, Information Officer, ACGD

The Economic Commission for Africa has recently become member of the “International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics and International Economics” (IWG), and has partaken recently in an annual course hosted by the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA (03-18 June) through the participation of Alfred Latigo, Senior Economic Affairs Officer in ACGD. He was one of the 15 programme instructors to this annual course drawn from universities, research institutions and international organizations worldwide.

The IWG is a network of economists established since 1994 for the purpose of promoting research, teaching, policy making and advocacy on gender equitable approaches to macroeconomics, international economics and globalization.

Every year, the course instructors are invited to an "intensive summer course" on mainstreaming gender in macroeconomics and international economics, followed by a meeting of the Working Group. It is usually attended by academics, researchers, government officials and advanced graduate students in economics.

Mr. Latigo specifically lectured on ECA/ACGD work on “Integrating Household Production into National Poverty Reduction Strategies and Policies in Africa”. He also participated in round table discussions on all the topics discussed during the meeting.

It is to be noted that most of the items covered in the course were relevant to the work ECA is undertaking on “Mainstreaming Gender in National Accounts and National budget”. As a matter of fact, several of the instructors in the IWG are already members of ECA Advisory Expert Group on Mainstreaming Gender in National Accounts and National Budget, and the interaction through the IWG is thus expected to strengthen this partnership and contribute to enhancing output delivery of this program.

The major outcome of this meeting can be summed up as follows:

- Gender and Macroeconomics -Africa (GEM-Africa) as part of the IWG, was established under the chairmanship of ECA, represented by Alfred Latigo. Its mission is to bring together a core of economists who have proven capacity in gender and macroeconomics to undertake systematic analytical research and continually build capacity of African economists;
- GEM-Africa will empower advocacy mission within the continent by generating pertinent information and indicators on gender issues from research findings;
- GEM-Africa also seeks to contribute to the incorporation of a strong gender and other heterodox perspectives into economics curriculum of educational institutions, and thus effectively contribute to mainstreaming gender into development agenda of the continent.
- The Group will begin by packaging a research and implementation proposal for cross-country programme on mainstreaming gender in the System of National Accounts (SNA), which will be like a home- grown attempt to support operationalization at country level of the outcomes of ACGD programme and related work by other institutions.

Some of the proposed activities GEM-Africa will be entrusted with are:

-dentify priority research themes on gender and macroeconomics;
* Mobilize funding support and engage the participation of gender economists to
carry out research both at national and regional levels;
* Launch a professional journal and a website on gender and macroeconomics at ECA;
-Conduct methodology and hands-on training workshops for participating researchers and economists on tools developed for mainstreaming gender in development process;
- Disseminate research findings through workshops and publication of journal articles, technical papers, policy and advocacy briefs, and through GEM-Africa website to be hosted by ECA;
- Discuss with ECA Management- through Josephine Ouedraogo, ACGD Director- the possibility to host the Secretariat of GEM-Africa.