Mauritius Council of Social Service

Paper presented by Ms Rita Ramdin – representative of MACOSS - Mauritius

Gender Budgeting In Mauritius

The Mauritius Council of Social Service was founded in 1965. The Council was then incorporated under Act 55 of 1970, voted in Parliament providing thus the legal framework of the Council. MACOSS is governed by an elected Executive Committee of 25 members and has today a membership of 250 Member Affiliates and out of which 50 works for the “Gender Empowerment and Mainstreaming”. The Secretariat is comprised of seven full time staff. Over the years, the Council has developed into an umbrella organisation for NGOs in Mauritius, becoming the focal point of the sector, and has also develop strong working relations with various local and International bodies as well as the Government of Mauritius.

The Commitment of the Government of Mauritius to adopting a Gendered approach in the handling of economical, social, cultural and political issues dates back to the 1994 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing with the formal undertaking to implement the resolution emanating from the conference. This approach was enshrined in the 1995 White Paper on Women in Development. It was made more explicit with the publication of the National Gender Action Plan in March 2000.The Ministry of Women’s Rights organised a consultative workshop on Engendering the Budget. The outcome was to established a Consultative Group, make up of representatives from the private sector, non-governmental organisation(NGOS), academics and senior technical official for ministries and other government departments. The agenda of the consultative Group was to :

• Initiate discussion on a three year Action Plan on Gender Budgeting
• Identify key components of the Action Plan
• Develop the vision, mission , strategic objectives and projects
• Identify strategic alliances and resources for implementation; and
• Identify benchmarks and a timetable for the work plan.

A High level Committee on Gender-Responsive Budgeting was set up to finalise the Action Plan and to monitor the associated activities. The committee is comprise of representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office, The Ministry of Finance, The MWRCDFW, the Ministry of Economic Development, Financial Services and Corporate Affairs, University of Mauritius, the Central Statistical Office as a first step in the Action Plan.

Most Governments have expressed a commitment to gender equality objectives and to gender mainstreaming, but often there is a gap between policy statements and the ways in which governments raise and spend money.

Gender responsive budget initiatives can help to close these gaps, ensuring that public money is raised and spent more effectively. They can help to ensure the realisation of gender equality goals and improved compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW) .
During the Beijing conference Mauritius chooses the Core Areas of Concerned

• Women and Health
• Women and Stereotypes
• Women in education
• Women and economics empowerment

Mauritius is amongst the developing countries with the highest enrolment rate in Primary Education .enrolment of boys and girls are nearly the same at Primary level. However, girls tend to be concentrated in stream like Art and Commercial at Secondary level.

In order to achieve the objective, govt has constructed a number of Secondary school to ensure access and a revision of curriculum with particular emphasis on science, mathematics and ICP has been under way.

Government has committed to develop the country of Mauritius into a knowledge based economy and a regional centre of Excellence. The legal framework has been put in place to attract brand name institutions to set up campuses in Mauritius. The role and function of Human Resources Development Council(HRDC)and the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) are also been adopted to support the transition.

The Budget of 2008, makes provision to move in the right direction to close the gender gap. This includes ensuring that women have economic opportunities through gender parity in employment opportunities, and training. It also includes encouraging women suppliers are aware of opportunities to submit tender, encouraging large companies to subcontract to women owned enterprise and providing space for women to sell products. The females unemployment rate in Mauritius is 15.5 percent compared to 5 percent for men.

There continue to be a lot of gender Stereotyping when it come to workplace. More women are encourage to enter the make donated workplace. Through the Budget 2008, more Training will be introduce in Industrial Vocational Board and association of Construction, also will give these facilities.

Mauritius Government is encouraging women Entrepreneur with the setting up of the Empowerment fund, Women are set to benefit theses contract.

The Budget also mentioned positive discrimination in favour of women. Space will be reserve for women in Village Touristiques in four corner of Mauritius.

The ‘Kinouete’ groups that are committed to work with women and children who are victims of abuse and violence are also to get support from government. A women and Children Solidarity fund to the tune of rupee 25 million(Euro 590,00) has been earmarked by projects that would brighten the lives of .battered women.

LMWO-GEMSA says it hopes that the removal of duties on household appliances will not only make life easier for women, but will encourage men to do household work. This will break gender stereotypes and will give men opportunity to show that they too can be professional house Managers.

The Minister of finance has made provision of fund up to US$ 3,600 in favour of women to grow business. It took into account the need of mothers for flexible working conditions and childcare facilities.

The provision for Women and Children solidarity programme has been doubled to Rs50 Million(US$ 1.8 million). Among other position this programme ensures training for women in prison and support for children whose parents are serving sentences. He also increased the budget of HIV/AIDS so that organisations can get more grant for their sensitisation prevention and awareness campaigns.

Over 2,000 families have been identified as living in abject poverty in 229 regions of Mauritius.

Among which 5,000 children do not go to school to pre-primary Schools for a variety of social problems. This Minister of finance embarked budget of RS 395 million (US$14.5 million) towards the eradication of extreme poverty. It will make sure that 5,000 children attend school. They are provided with free transport, clothing & school materials, a Medical check and be given hearing and glasses if needed be both parents and children are to get social accompaniment.

In developing these programme the Mauritius Government is recognising that many social problems have a feminine face. Budgets are earmarked to reduce the unemployment of women, eradicating of poverty and assistance of Victims and survivors of gender violence.

It is well documented that there is a gender dimension to poverty. In fact, a lot of work has been done in Mauritius on studying the feminization of poverty. The Causes and impacts of poverty are different for men and women . The constraints, opportunities, incentives and needs are subsequently different for men and women. Men and women contribute differently to and are affected differently by poverty reducing measures. aspects of studying poverty.

In a study made by Center for Applied Social Research (CASR) on Discrimination in Recruitment and other studies made in Mauritius it has been found that women earn less than men when they have salaries.

The Government of Mauritius will set up a Poverty Observatory and the activities will be to look at gender differences in experiences of, and responses to, poverty. It is necessary to understand that the relationship between gender and poverty will move in move directions and will that gender will need to be regarded as an influential variable in all

In poor household the role of the women in achieving and maintaining the standard of living is crucial therefore the observatory will be a mechanism to understand the functioning of the poorest households and thus find solutions.

The input of Civil Society is always sought for surveys and studies and the Mauritius Council of Social Service fully involved all its member affiliates working in the field of gender in this process.

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