Women continue to be under-represented in key positions related to policy and programme implementation. Furthermore, decentralised bodies lack the technical, material and financial resources to implement a gender equality policy effectively. The lack of expertise on gender analysis and gender budgeting of technical and local counsellors has become one of the main obstacles to mainstreaming gender into planning and budgeting processes.
Women are also marginalised in public participation fora, which have been designed to enable people to take part in discussions relating to development priorities and programme implementation. Nevertheless, issues related to gender equality are brought up in these fora, particularly violence against women, land tenure and property ownership, as well as family planning. The study concludes that the decentralisation process in Rwanda offers opportunities to close the gender gap and achieve more equality. However, this is subject to the strengthening of decision-making powers of decentralised bodies and local communities so that they can take ownership of the decentralisation process.
