This background paper was prepared for the Commonwealth Secretariat in May 2007 by Mariama Williams, Adjunct Associate, Center of Concern, Washington DC and Research Adviser for the International Gender and Trade Network.

This report by Nalini Burn, Larabi Jaidi and Hayat Zirari (2005) is a diagnostic study designed to analyse the potential of gender mainstreaming in the budget process of Morocco's communes.

Since 2004, 13 research projects supported in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America by the Women's Rights and Citizenship program of Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) have been exploring exactly how decentralization affects women's access to services, resources, a

This report presents the results of a research aimed at developing a diagnosis and an analysis of the opportunities that stem from introducing a gender approach in budgetary processes in some communes of Morocco.

Decentralization has sometimes been presented as a magic bullet for both development and democracy.