The minister for Gender and Family Promotion, Oda Gasinzigwa, has reaffirmed Rwanda’s continued commitment to empower women to ensure gender equity. Gasinzigwa was speaking on Wednesday during a plenary session at the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW59) in New York, organized as part of the events to mark 20 years after the Beijing Declaration. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, approved in September 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women, is a global pledge to attaining equality, development and peace for women worldwide. The session of the Commission on the Status of Women being held at United Nations headquarters started on March 9th and will be concluded on 20th. In her speech, Gasinzigwa said Rwanda will accelerate the implementation of the 12 critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action through partnership with other global and regional blocs and networks. “As you know, many countries sign commitments related to gender equality. However, different reports show that the implementation is hindered by insufficient allocation of resources. Rwanda has approached this by integrating financing for gender equality into the national planning processes with the adoption of a gender sensitive organic budget law,” Gasinzigwa said. Rwanda has been able to increase the girl child enrollment in schools from 95.1 per cent in 2009 to 98 per cent by 2012 while women’s access to formal and micro finance services has also greatly improved. The culture of bank savings by women has also increased from 29 per cent in 2008 to 47 per cent in 2012.
