The Women's Division established in 1979 as a part of the Cabinet Division was upgraded to become the Ministry of Women's Development (MoWD) in 1989. This apparently showed a government commitment to address the issues of Pakistani women in a serious way.The Government of Pakistan signed the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1995. A National Plan of Action was prepared and issued in 1998 by the MoWD, which detailed the strategic objectives of 12 targeted areas and their respective plans. The Government of Pakistan (GoP) and Pakistani NGOs participated in the Beijing +5 meeting in New York and submitted two reports on the initiatives taken by the respective sectors on the 12 areas of the National Plan of Action including "Women and Poverty" and "Women and the Economy".

Cognizant of the importance of women development for the overall economic growth of Pakistan the government has prepared a Gender & Development : Ten-Year Perspective Development Plan, 2001-11 which entails the following:

Issues	Strategies	Programs
Institutional Mechanism for the advancement of Women through Employment	Development of a national policy for women Development of a national policy for women Preparation of a Strategic Plan for Women Development Setting up of a Management Information Sytem Creation of Technical Resource Base in Women Study Centers Gender Sensitization at Federal, Provincial & District level Capacity Building of Women councilors	Policy formulation process in consultation with stakeholders Mainstreaming of Gender and Development through Sectoral program Establish a data base for gender statistics Upgrade Women Study centers in Resource Centers Orientation courses/workshops for elected women representatives Gender sensitization training
Women & Poverty	Implementation of National Plan of Action Economic Empowerment of Women	Gender & Poverty Alleviation & skill development projects. Micro financing through different windows Monitoring & Evaluation
Human Rights, legal issues and violence against women	Family Protection Program National Commission on the status of women Advocacy and awareness	Development of family protection complexes, to include crisis centers, Dar ul Aman and shelters linked with legal aid, police centers, family courts and others Awareness through Mass Media

The national Policy of Development and Empowerment of Women is a statement of intent of the government of Pakistan to specify its measures for the development and empowerment of women. With the policy providing the guidelines, the Ministry of Women Development (MoWD) is responsible to ensure within the overall operating framework of the government that the gender perspective is reflected in all national policies and plans.VisionAchievement of : gender equity and equality; social, political and economic empowerment of all Pakistani women at all levels; a just, humane and democratic society; economic prosperity through sustainable development ; Goal empowerment of Pakistani women, irrespective of caste, creed, religion, or other consideration for the realization of their full potential in all spheres of life, especially social, economic, personal and political and in keeping with our Islamic way of life.

Aims & Objectives

• To remove inequities and imbalances in all sectors of socio-economic development and to ensure women"s equal access to all development benefits and social services.
• To ensure the participation of women as equal partners in national development & decision making processes in the community and society
• To ensure the full participation of women in all political processes and to enhance women?s representation in all elective bodies
• To safeguard and ensure the protection of women's human rights including economic, legal, political and social rights, especially the rights of minority women, rural and poor women, girls & women with disabilities, elderly women and women in vulnerable circumstances and situations
• To provide women and girls access to quality health care services and all other pre-requisites to enjoying full health, including reproductive and mental health
• To expeditiously and substantially enhance women's literacy rates, improve attainment levels of girls and women at all levels of education (both academic & professional) to reduce the gender gap, and to reorient existing curricula by making them gender sensitive.

Key Policy Measures for Economic Empowerment of Women:

• Ensuring that government agencies adopt a gender sensitive approach to development preparing needs based, participatory and implementable programs and projects.
• Gender sensitization to be institutionalized and integrated into all sectors of development and to include the private sector as well
• Developing multi-sectoral and inter-disciplinary approaches for women's development , with horizontal and vertical linkages at every level
• Mainstreaming gender issues through integration into all sectors of national development
• Eliminating all negative social practicesSectors of policy dealing with economic Empowerment of Women

Though women are an essential part of the country's economy, their share in economic benefits, opportunities and access to resources is not proportionate to their share in the population. Furthermore increasing poverty as a result of structural adjustment programs and globalization disproportionately impacts women.

Poverty
Affirming government policies for poverty alleviation of the pporest of the poor, in particular women and endorses the provision of safety nets, food support schemes, and of provision of funds through zakat. Providing adequate relief and safety measures to alleviate the disproportionate impact of poverty on women by ensuring access of poor rural women to land, agriculture and livestock extension services and support mechanisms and facilities creating access to affordable housing schemes for women and promoting equality and the empowerment of women in all housing activities as espoused in the Government Housing policy 2001.

Access to Credit
Providing women easy access to micro-credit especially through available windows such as Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF); Rural Support Programs (RSPs); First Women Bank Limited (FWBL); Zarai Taraqeate Bank, Khushali Bank. Enurin that women in general and female headed households, women bread earners, and women with disability in particular, have priority in accessing credit on soft term from FWBL and Khushali Banks and other financial institutions for setting up their business, for buying properties and for housing building.

Remunerated Work
Increasing women's capacity to earn by improving access to sources of livelihood, particularly in agriculture and livestock production. Providing equal opportunities for women in remunerated employment which also accommodate women-oriented work patterns. Improving facilities for the education, training and skill development for women, to enter and re-enter the labour force, including special arrangements, as specified in the draft Labour Policy for women relatives of workers. Ensuring appropriate legislation, including the following measures as proposed in the draft Labour Ploicy. Give effect to the ILO convention 100 ratified by Pakistan in 2001 by enacting a law to ensure equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value. Under take measures to make work places conducive for women workers so they can work without fear of discrimination and arressment. Enact a law and guidelines to provide protection against sexual harassment at the work place and relief/remedy in caseses where it occurs. Providing special courses for women in entrepreneurial skills to assist and enage them to establish their own small scale enterprises.

Initiatives for Subsistence (Micro) Businesses
The last decade has seen a number of initiatives using micro-credit as a tool for poverty alleviation. Examples include the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), the National Rural Support Program (NRSP), other Rural Support Programs (RSPs), and more recently the Khushali Bank. These programs have tried to target women in their lending programs for two reasons. First, because the success of micro-credit in Bangladesh is partly linked with lending to women borrowers whose conservative and trustworthy behavior has made it possible for the bank to sustain its lending operations. Second, the rising levels of poverty in Pakistan and the preponderance of poor women have forced policy makers to give special attention to women who intend to start a tiny or micro business activity. It is ironical, though, that despite this focus, the best ever outreach recorded for the RSPs is a 25% coverage of women as borrowers.NGO programs offer micro-credit to women much more frequently than the RSPs but their overall coverage is very small. The Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP) which is the largest development finance institution in the country has also started a small-scale credit scheme for women.The micro-credit programs focus on the survival skills of the beneficiaries and their major thrust is on poverty alleviation.Business Development ServicesBesides the above financial assistance, the government has also established institutions to support businesses. These include Small & Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA), Trade Development Authority (TDAP), Punjab Small Industries Department (PSIC), Sind Small Industries Department (SSIC) etc. Each of these institutions offer a number of incentives for business promotion to both women and men

It is quiet apparent from above that besides working towards creating a conducive business environment in general, women specific policy measures to induce Women Entrepreneurship Development is a priority of the government and various incentives towards the attainment of this objective have already been initiated and other programs are in the pipeline.