National Guidelines in Jamaica - Government

1987 National Policy Statement on Women is a guide on the mainstreaming of gender equality in the policy and planning of all ministries and agencies on the government and seeks to sensitise policy makers to gender issues. The policy statement stipulates that all sectors of Government adhere to the following four principles:

"All policies of the Government must reflect a full recognition of the equal and complementary partnership of women and men.

Economic and social development policies and programmes must provide for equality of access to resources by both women and men.

In policy planning, special consideration must be given to women’s multiple responsibilities, both as income earners and in the household. In particular, policies must take account of the high proportion of women of all ages who are single parents and sole supporters of their families.

Special measures must be developed to compensate for historic and current disadvantages experienced by women."

As part of the implementation strategy, the Government established intra-ministerial committees to monitor the implementation of the policy and to report problems and difficulties in its application to the intra-ministerial committee.

In particular reference to women in agriculture, the 1987 National Policy Statement declared that:

"Recognising the benefits to the economy and to women of increased opportunity and income in entrepreneurial activities, the government will promote the identification and upgrading of women’s skills and promote new opportunities, it will also take measure to address constraints such as access to credit, such as access to markets and the need for support services."

Accordingly, the National Five Year Plan 1990-5 called upon programmes and policies relating to rural women to, inter alia:

1. devise appropriate systems to train women in agriculture;

2. upgrade women’s access to credit, marketing and support services in agriculture, with particular emphasis on entrepreneurial and agricultural activities of women; and

3. mobilise farmers and unemployed women in the development of small community based farm projects that will improve domestic food crop production.

The Bureau of Women’s Affairs

The Strategic/Corporate Plan 1997/2000 outlines programmes, delivery strategies and performance indicators for the Bureau of Women’s Affairs to operationalize the National Industrial Policy, a government initiative to modernize the public sector. The Plan focuses in particular on mainstreaming gender and empowering women in the public sector and reducing poverty amongst women and domestic violence. In addition to women working in the public sector, it identifies its target group as the aged, young and rural women.

The Plan identified several activities and fields for advancing gender equality:

1. training and education;

2. equal access to income generating occupations for men and women, especially in non-traditional forms of work;

3. a gender balance in governmental bodies and committees, public administrative bodies, and in the judiciary; and,

4. institutional strengthening.

The Bureau of Women’s Affairs has been instrumental in including a gender component in the National Five-Year Development Plan of Jamaica. The component has been formulated in coordination with the Planning Institute of Jamaica; Ministries of Labour, Social Security and Sports; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture; Ministry of Finance and Planning; Ministry of Agriculture and Housing; the Attorney General’s Office; Non-Governmental Organisations; the West Indies Centre for Gender Development as well as civil society.

The Action Plan 1990-1995 focused its activities on education and training, entrepreneurial activities, industrial relations and support services, housing, health and legal reform.

In 1997-2000, the Action Plan focused on institutional strengthening, family, violence against women, children, poverty, education and training, residence programme for elders and awareness raising education programmes on gender issues for the public.