UNDP's Gender Equality Strategy (GES) for 2008-2011

7/28/2019 UNDP's Gender Equality Strategy (GES) for 2008-2011

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The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are about inclusive development.

Despite the progress that has been made, six out of ten of world’s poorest people

are still women and girls, only 16 percent of the world’s parliamentarians are

women, two thirds of all children shut outside the school gates are girls and, both

in times of armed conflict and behind closed doors at home, women are still

systematically subjected to violence. Gender equality and women’s empowerment

are human rights that lie at the heart of development and the achievement of the

Millennium Development Goals.

This is why gender equality and women’s empowerment are an integrating

dimension of UNDP’s four main areas of work, namely poverty reduction,

democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery and the environment and

sustainable development.

Between 2008 and 2011, UNDP will be guided by its Gender Equality Strategy,

which is designed to do the following:

• Assist national institutions in developing countries to design their policies,

plans and budgets in such a way that the needs of poor women and men,

boys and girls are addressed equitably.

• Empower women to participate in all branches of the state, the private sector

and civil society and to influence the decisions that will determine the future

of their families and their countries.

• Support government institutions and women’s organizations to collect,

analyze and use better quality information and statistics on gender equality

and women’s empowerment, because only with the right facts can a country

determine the best way to solve a problem.

UNDP Gender Equality Strategy2 0 0 8 – 2 0 1 1



For more information on UNDP’s Gender Equality Strategy please contact us at:

UNDP Gender Team

Bureau for Development Policy

One United Nations Plaza

New York, NY, 10017 USA

Tel: +1 212 906 5081

http://www.undp.org/gender

“The empowerment of women and achieving

gender equality permeates everything we do –

our policies, programmes and investments” K E M A L D E R V I S , U N D P A D M I N I S T R A T O R

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s global devel-

opment network, an organization advocating for change and connecting

countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a bet-

ter life. UNDP is on the ground in 166 countries, working with people on their

own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they devel-

op local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of

partners. In all our activities, we encourage the protection of human rights

and the empowerment of women.



EMPOWERED

EQUAL

and

GENDER EQUALITY STRATEGY2008–2011

United Nations Development Programme



POVERTY REDUCTION AND ACHIEVING THE MDGS

Where men and women have equal opportunities and freedom,

economic growth accelerates and poverty rates drop more rapidly

for everyone. Reducing inequalities between women and men is

therefore critical to achieve the first MDG of cutting by half the

number of people living in absolute poverty by 2015. With this aim,UNDP works with national partners to:

• Design national development strategies, plans and budgets

that respond to the needs of both poor women and men,

while helping women to better influence and shape these

policies.

• Promote women’s and girls’ economic rights and opportunities,

including investing in women’s entrepreneurship.

• Build capacities to address the gender dimensions of HIV/AIDS

through laws, policies and budgets.

• Strengthen national statistical and planning offices’ capacity to

collect, analyse and use gender statistics.

“When we look at the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they’re not just gender-related.

Gender inequality is often the root cause of the problem.”

J O A N H O L M E S , F O U N D I N G P R E S I D E N T , T H E H U N G E R P R O J E C T

DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE

There are two main elements to UNDP’s work when it comes to democratic governance

and gender equality. Firstly, UNDP strives to ensure that women have a real voice in all

governance institutions, from the judiciary to the civil service, so that they can participate

equally to men in public dialogue and decision-making. Secondly, UNDP assists national

partners to design public services that meet the needs of poor women and men, girls and boys

equitably. From the national to the most local levels, UNDP works to:

• Increase the number of women in public office and enhance women’s leadership byhelping to reform electoral processes, make political parties more accessible and

accountable to women, strengthen parliaments and the civil service, and support

women’s networks.

• Promote judicial reform to ensure equal legal

protection to poor women and men.

• Enhance government capacity to deliver public services,

especially at the local level, that benefit both poor women

and men equitably.

• Support countries to ratify, implement, and report on the

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

• Work with regional, national and local governments,

institutions and civil society organizations to reduce

gender-based violence.



CRISIS PREVENTION AND RECOVERY

If a society is stable and secure it is more likely to achieve the MDGs, and in times of

crisis, communities that equitably plan for and address the different needs of men and

women are better prepared to recover from conflict or natural disasters. Despite the

devastation than crises can wield, the period of rebuilding afterwards offers a great

opportunity to create more inclusive governance institutions and to transform societies.For these reasons, UNDP has defined the following Eight Point Agenda to empower

women and enhance gender equality in crisis prevention and recovery efforts:

ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The world’s poorest and most vulnerable people are dependent on their natural environment

to earn a living and feed their families. Six out of ten of those people are girls or women, who

also shoulder the burden of tilling land, grinding grain,carrying water and cooking over smoky

stone fires. When natural resources are depleted, or the impacts of climate change hit, poorwomen use their local knowledge and experience of the environment to survive and adapt,

knowledge that should be harnessed as a vital source of information to shape inclusive

national environmental policies. With this in mind, UNDP works to:

• Support governments to ensure that the needs of both women and men are included in

environment and energy policies, plans and budgets.

• Enhance the capacity of governments to deliver modern energy and environment services

to poor women and men equitably.

• Help women’s networks to participate effectively in the decisions taken at the national, regional and global

level that affect the environment, including decisions on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

• Improve access to environmental finance for women entrepreneurs and community-basedwomen’s organizations.

• Collect and use women’s local knowledge to protect, sustain and manage biodiversity and natural resources.

“Battles are fought on women’s bodies as much as on battlefields. It is not so much that women

are targeted in some deliberate way but their vulnerability makes them easy targets for anger, for

frustration, and for people wanting to cripple or paralyze other segments of the community in

which they live.”

K A T H L E E N C R A V E R O , U ND P’ S D I R E C T O R F O R C R I S I S P R E V E N T I O N A N D R E C O V E R Y

“Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree,you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing.

You are just talking.”

W A N G A R I M U T A M A A T H A I , E N V I R O N M E N T A L A C T I V I S T A N D N O B E L P E A C E P R I Z E W I N N E R

1. Strengthen women’s security in crisis: Stop violence against women.

2. Advance gender justice: Provide justice and security for women.

3. Expand women’s citizenship, participation and leadership: Advance women as decision-makers.

4. Build peace with and for women: Involve women in all peace processes.

5. Promote gender equality in disaster risk reduction: Value women’s knowledge and experience.

6. Ensure gender-responsive recovery: Support men and women to build back better.

7. Transform government to deliver for women: Include women’s issues in the national agenda.

8. Develop capacities for social change: Work together to transform society.



TACKLING GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

Up to half of all women have experienced violence behind closed doors at the hands

of their intimate partners, while systematic sexual violence against women has

characterized almost all recent armed conflicts as a tool of terror. The problem of

gender-based violence, which most often manifests itself as violence against

women and girls, is pervasive in all regions of the world and remains a serious

obstacle to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment. Tremendous

progress has been made in establishing international standards and enacting

national laws to address gender-based violence but, as of yet, no decrease is evident.

The United Nations family, including UNDP, is working together through theUN Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE) to fight

gender-based violence, paying special attention to engaging men and boys in

making violence against women something of the past.

INSIDE UNDP: A CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION

To achieve gender equality and women's empowerment, UNDP

believes it is essential to bring about a cultural transformation in the

way the organization conducts its own business. UNDP aims to

set an example and initiate change from within by staffing equal

numbers of women and men at all levels and by ensuring that the

needs of women and men are addressed in the workplace and

in programming. To make this happen, stronger accountability

frameworks are being put in place, supported by improved

knowledge sharing and communication. UNDP will track, monitor,

and report on results in a clear and transparent manner.

Documents

UNDP's Gender Equality Strategy (GES) for 2008-2011