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Bujumbura, 2008-03-25 (Burundi Réalités Agence Presse) - Bujumbura hosts a regional workshop on gender mainstreaming as part of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region. Today, the First Vice-President of the Republic, Dr Yves Sahinguvu, opened this three-day workshop. Delegates from 11 countries attend this workshop on the implementation of projects of the Great Lakes Pact on security, peace and development. The participating countries include Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo, Zambia, Centrafrica, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Angola.
According to Burundi’s minister in charge of Gender Equality, Mrs Rose Nduwayo, the choice of Burundi to host this workshop ‚constitutes an incentive for Burundian people in search of stability.‚
The objectives of this workshop are three-fold: providing guidelines on gender mainstreaming in the projects of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region; providing general guidelines on gender mainstreaming in the regional implementation mechanism of the International Conference on Great Lakes Region and suggesting a framework as an advocacy tool for the implementation of all programmes of action, protocols and pacts in the domestication of protocols.
According to Mrs Hyacinthe Mudomo, who participated in the workshop, ‚a cabinet minister may fail to implement gender mainstreaming simply because he does not understand it. One of the results of the workshop will be to provide a set of guidelines in very simple language that will allow the implementation of gender mainstreaming in the legal texts of participating countries.‚
The setup of the International Conference on the Great Lakes dates back to a 2004 summit in Dar es Salaam. After many years of instability in the Great Lakes Region, the heads of state of the region decided to do their best to develop it into a haven of peace. With the help of international development partners, countries of the Great Lakes Region held many meetings in a bid to bring into action the head of states’ plans. Currently, the Executive Secretariat of the International Conference on the Great Lakes is in Bujumbura. The Tanzanian Ambassador Liberate Mulamula runs it.
This forum is designed to reinvigorate the former Economic Commission of the Great Lakes Region which collapses due to disparities between Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. It also has programmes from which Burundi, as a landlocked country, can profit. The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region will address the development of communications infrastructures.
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