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NINTH ITEM ON THE AGENDA

Programme and Budget proposals for 2000-01

Addendum: Resources and activities proposed
for gender equality issues

1. As a supplement to the information contained in the Programme and Budget proposals for 2000-01, volume 3,⁽¹⁾  the present paper contains more detailed forecasts of the resources proposed by the principal technical programmes for 2000-01 for the implementation of gender activities. Several members of the Governing Body have repeatedly expressed an interest in gender issues and in enhancing the visibility of such issues in the Organization's programmes.

2. The present document is intended to respond to that wish. However, the information contained in it comprises only provisional estimates and largely reflects the estimates and assessments made by the technical programme directors themselves, although an attempt has been made to standardize the calculation methods used. Provisional data obtained from the principal sources of extra-budgetary finance have been taken into account when considering technical cooperation resources. The data contained in this report are thus no more than estimates of likely expenditure on gender activities proposed for the technical programmes, either under the regular budget or under technical cooperation for 2000-01.

3. Lastly, it should be noted that the present document reflects the budget decisions already taken by the Governing Body in March of this year and those taken by the Conference in June 1999 when it approved the Programme and Budget for 2000-01.

I. Regular budget resources allocated to gender issues

4. The table below shows that about US$12.3 million (in constant 1998-99 US dollars) from the regular budget will be directly allocated by technical departments in 2000-01 to gender issues and activities. That sum represents the planned expenditure for Professional staff, costs relating to the implementation of programmes such as technical missions, seminars and meetings, and research and development costs. It does not include other general operational and management costs, since the aim is not to show the costs of gender activities, but rather, to illustrate the scale of the resources devoted to them.

5. The resources proposed for these activities represent 8 per cent of the technical programme financial envelope in 2000-01. Although the methods used to calculate these estimates for the present biennium and the preceding one differ slightly, the comparison between the two biennia is still meaningful. In 1998-99, the regular budget resources allocated by the technical departments to gender activities amounted to US$4.8 million, which represents just under 40 per cent of proposed expenditure for the 2000-01 biennium in constant US dollars.

Professional staff resources working on gender issues
by technical programme in the 2000-01 Strategic Budget

	Full-time staff (work-years/ months)	Estimated part-time staff (work-years/ months)	Other costs	Total costs
Standards, fundamental principles and rights
IFP -- Declaration	-	1/00	-	148 332
IFP -- Child labour	2/0	1/00	148 332	444 996
International Labour Standards Department	2/0	5/07	135 000	1 259 851
Subtotal	4/0	7/07	283 332	1 853 179
Employment
Employment strategy	-	7/10	-	1 161 934
Recovery and reconstruction	-	3/09	187 000	743 245
IFP -- Job creation and enterprise development	8/07	-	153 000	1 339 656
IFP -- Skills, knowledge and employability	-	4/02	223 000	841 050
Gender Promotion Unit	6/0	-	431 824	1 321 816
Subtotal	14/07	15/09	994 824	5 407 701
Social protection
IFP -- Socio-economic security	-	1/06	-	222 498
Social Security Department	-	1/03	-	185 415
Conditions of work	-	5/04	170 000	961 104
IFP -- SafeWork	-	4/00	100 000	693 328
International migration	-	0/09	-	111 249
Subtotal	-	12/10	270 000	2 173 594
Social dialogue
IFP -- Social dialogue	-	0/03	-	37 083
Workers' activities	2/00	-	25 000	321 664
Employers' activities	-	1/02	27 000	200 054
Sectoral activities	-	1/00	-	148 332
Government, labour law and administration	-	0/02	-	24 722
Subtotal	2/00	2/07	52 000	731 855
Bureau of gender equality	8/00	-	916 644	2 103 300
Total	28/07	38/09	2 516 800	12 269 629

6. With regard to working methods, it will be noted that each of the four technical sectors has a special unit for gender activities, either in the form of a permanent working group or a focal point. As indicated in paragraphs 11 and 12 of the principal document GB.276/PFA/9, volume 3, there will be over the coming months a number of internal resource adjustments to allow the common services in each sector to have a full-time gender specialist who will be responsible among other things for ensuring that these activities are effective and properly coordinated within the sector and with other sectors. A significant proportion of the work time of the technical staff in the four major strategic programmes will be devoted to gender activities linked to the operational objectives for 2000-01. For the technical programmes as a whole, the number of specialists who will be working full time or part time on the implementation of gender activities at headquarters will represent more than 67 Professional staff work-years. In addition, the different regions have full-time gender specialists. A total of six will be provided under the regional programme budgets for 2000-01. These specialists will be attached to the multidisciplinary teams and will work in close cooperation with the technical programmes at headquarters, and will mediate and support their field activities.

II. Extra-budgetary resources

7. Estimates for the extra-budgetary resources dedicated to gender activities are less reliable than is the case with regular budget resources, since a number of technical cooperation projects have not yet been formulated and their gender components have not yet been determined. Furthermore, the wishes of donors are not yet known. Nevertheless, by extrapolating the trend observed over previous years and taking into account the strategic objectives adopted for 2000-01, it is estimated that of the total estimated expenditure for the Office in 2000-01 of US$215 million, about 10-12 per cent of the extra-budgetary resources will be allocated to gender activities, corresponding to expenditure of the order of US$23 million for the biennium.

8. That figure is reasonable given that the 22 or so new technical cooperation projects with gender objectives or with a strong gender component which are being submitted or have already been submitted to multi-bilateral sources account for nearly US$25 million (see table in the appendix) for the Office as a whole, including the regional programmes.

9. Three-quarters of the projects submitted to extra-budgetary sources concern the employment sector. However, there is increasing interest on the part of donors in gender activities in the areas of social dialogue and social protection. Combating child labour and especially the exploitation of girls will benefit from enhanced efforts to mobilize extra-budgetary resources.

10. The complementarity and synergy between the regular budget for technical cooperation (RBTC) and the extra-budgetary funds will be strengthened, with a view to promoting multi-bilateral finance for gender programmes and correcting imbalances between technical sectors. RBTC expenditure for gender-related technical cooperation projects in 2000-01 is very likely to exceed by 8-10 per cent the US$4.5 million allocated to those projects in 1998-99, accounting for 18 per cent of RBTC credits for that period.

III. Key activities

11. The priority given to gender issues in the implementation of the Organization's strategic objectives and the greater resources allocated to them in the proposed budget for 2000-01 are clearly reflected in all the programme proposals. Gender issues by their very nature concern activities which cut across department and sectoral boundaries. Nevertheless, given the strategic nature of the present budget, the gender programmes that have been proposed focus on employment issues and the ILO's fundamental standards and principles. Other aspects of equality between men and women are obviously addressed under the strategic and operational objectives relating to social protection and social dialogue.

12. The Programme and Budget proposals for 2000-01 (volume 3) include some detailed information in this area, in particular in the descriptions of the InFocus programmes. The present paper presents some additional examples of gender activities and components of the programmes proposed for 2000-01. The list which follows is obviously not exhaustive.

1. Standards, fundamental principles and rights at work

• Examining, in those economic sectors with a predominantly female workforce (such as export processing zones and agriculture), issues of discrimination and obstacles to freedom of association faced by women.
• Influencing the drafting and implementation of national legislation through the procedures for the monitoring and application of Conventions dealing directly or indirectly with the situation of women at work.
• As part of the fight against child labour, seeking the elimination of prostitution and trafficking in children and of other forms of child labour in which girls are often in the majority.

2. Employment

• Gathering and disseminating information and technical guidelines on employment programmes aimed at women in the informal sector, small and medium-sized enterprises and agriculture.
• Formulating proposals concerning economic and social strategies for reducing all forms of discrimination in employment and cutting unemployment among women.
• Providing advice on the development of national strategies and plans for creating quality employment for women in the informal and modern sectors.
• Defining and proposing training policies and schemes that will be fairer to women and contribute effectively to the fight against poverty and underemployment of women workers.
• Designing and disseminating innovative methods of improving the skills of women entrepreneurs in management, productivity and the improvement of working conditions.

3. Social protection

• Collecting information on best practices and policies among constituents with a view to combating sexual harassment in the workplace and other practices detrimental to the dignity of women at work.
• Examining new ways of arranging working time and organizing work with a view to developing consensual approaches adapted to the situation of women.
• Promoting the principles of equality of men and women in the area of social security.

4. Social dialogue

• Proposing innovative approaches which will encourage women to take a more active part in trade union life and labour relations.
• Raising awareness among and providing advisory services for workers' and employers' organizations on issues of equality of opportunity for men and women and on the representation of women in trade union organizations and institutions for social dialogue.

IV. Conclusion

13. This paper shows that gender issues occupy a significant place among the strategic programmes. They are systematically incorporated into the design and implementation of programmes, including in the area of technical cooperation. This paper also shows that the resources dedicated to these issues in the technical sectors have grown by 156 per cent by comparison with the 1998-99 biennium.

Geneva, 9 November 1999.

Appendix

Multi-bilateral projects submitted to donors concerning gender issues

Project code	Project title	Technical unit	Budget (US$)
CRO/98/M017/FIN	Plan of Action for Promoting Equal Pay and Gender Equality in the Republic of Croatia	EMPFORM	444 090
HAI/99/M01/USA	Improving Working Conditions in the Haitian Assembly Sector	LEG/REL	1 000 000
INT/96/MI9/LUX	War-affected Women and Youth in Countries Emerging out of Conflict	POLFORM	326 288
INT/99/M05/NET	Effective Legislation, Policies and Practices for Sustainable Promotion of Gender Equality	EMPFORM	854 563
INT/99/M14/NET	Effective Policies and Practices for the Sustainable Promotion of Gender Equality	WOMEMP	882 756
INT/99/M15/NOR	Promoting Social Protection for Poor Women in the Informal Sector	STEP	425 276
PHI/97/M01/BEL	Mindanao Livelihood and Social Enterprise Development Project	ENTREPRISE	904 158
RAF/99/M05/NOR	Gender and Industrial Relations Training Programme	LEG/REL	547 356
RAF/99/M06/NOR	Gender Equality in Cooperatives	COOP	250 000
RAS/99/M11/UKM	Reducing Labour Exploitation of Children and Women: Combating Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Subregion	TRAVAIL	4 672 000
URT/98/M02/FRG	Tanzania Plan of Action on More and Better Jobs for Women	EMPFORM	3 089 923
		Total	13 396 410

Multi-bilateral projects awaiting submission to donors

Project title	Technical unit	Budget (US$)
CITU-ILO Project for Education of Women Trade Unionists	ACTRAV	-
Peace and Reconciliation through Training and Employment Promotion	COTEF	500 000
Employment Promotion and Skill Training for Women through Strengthening of Technical Training Centres	COTEF	1 636 000
Introduction of the Start Your Business Training Programme for Potential Rural Women Entrepreneurs in the Handicraft Sector in Baalbeck	ENT/MAN	242 500
Empowerment of Women through Self-Employment and Small Enterprise Development	ENT/MAN	2 400 000
Employment Promotion and Entrepreneurship Development for Sustainable Livelihood of Rural Women	ENTREPRISE	2 700 000
Strengthening the National Machinery for the Advancement of Women's Employment	ENTREPRISE	375 000
The Establishment and Support of Businesswomen's Associations/Units in Chambers of Commerce in Selected Arab Countries	ENTREPRISE	206 000
Support to Women Entrepreneurs in the Formal Private Sector	ENTREPRISE	547 299
Development of a Social Security Protection System for Palestinian Workers and their Families	SEC SOC	989 994
Plan of Action on More and Better Jobs for Women in Burkina Faso	WOMEMP	1 650 561
	Total	11 247 354

1. Document GB.276/PFA/9.