Gender mainstreaming in finance ministries

Ministries of Finance appear largely to have escaped careful scrutiny in at tempts to sensitize different divisions of government to gender concerns. T his paper shows three possible points of entry to engendering the work of M inistries of Finance: at the level of ongoing macroeconomic management, whi ch includes the annual budget of the government and the fiscal deficit, ext ernal and internal debt, and the balance of payments; at the level of struc tural reforms-particularly deregulation, liberalization, and privatization- which are intended to improve efficient resource use and eradicate poverty; and in the specific context of credit liberalization and the provision of micro-credit. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.