Gender and law conference produces national action plans

Abstract

ECA and World Bank representatives met with Ministers of Justice, women lawyers, gender focal points from U.N. agencies and civil society representatives from East Africa. The conference, the first in a series of sub regional meetings planned for Africa, was organized jointly by the World Bank, Africa Region and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), to identify legal constraints to the advancement of women in Member States, and the action needed at the national level to promote gender awareness in the legal sector and gender-sensitive legislation. The 3-day conference "Gender and Law: Eastern Africa Speaks" ended on Friday, 25 October in a spirit of hope that concrete, specific national action plans for integrating gender considerations and gender rights into the laws and regulatory systems of most countries of East Africa would be finalized shortly, and that recommended actions would be facilitated and spurred by donor funded interventions. The conference was largely financed by the Norwegian Government.