National Guidelines in Guyana - The National Policy for Women

The National Policy was approved by the Guyanese Parliament in 1996. It brought into being two mechanisms, the National Commission on Women and the Inter-Ministry Committee. It spearheads the Guyanese effort to mainstream gender across all sectors of Guyanese society and in all government policies and programs. At present, application of the policy is limited; one notable action being the participation of gender and development consultants and officials in the formulation of the draft National Development Strategy. The policy has adopted the strategy found in the 1995 Commonwealth Plan of Action on Gender and Development which states "that a key objective of government should be to integrate gender in all government agendas, policies and programmes, thus creating a culture which Government which is gender sensitive and where gender issues become the responsibility of all".

The Education and Training for Women policy is geared to enable women to play a greater leadership role at all levels of society. The Ministry of Education has initiated action to remove sex stereotyping in text books.

The National Action Plan for women addresses the areas of legislation, health, education, agriculture, employment, violence against women and girls and leadership training.