In 1997, the United
Nations Economic and Social Council
defined gender mainstreaming as “the
process of assessing the implications
for women and men of any planned action,
including legislation, policies or
programmes, in any area and at all
levels. It is a strategy for making
the concerns and experiences of women,
as well as of men, an integral part
of the design, implementation, monitoring
and evaluation of policies and programmes
in all political, economic and societal
spheres, so that women and men benefit
equally, and inequality is not perpetuated.
With a total population of approximately
37 million in Sudan, women account
for nearly 50% of the population.
Despite their active role in society,
their socio-economic situation is
still precarious. For decades they
have remained marginalized both economically
and socially, and sidelined in the
political sphere. A large number of
women have little access to health
and education, and limited access
to various resources. Women’s
health is often threatened by harmful
traditional practices, such as female
genital mutilation, and yet their
limited participation in the decision-making
mechanisms deprives them from voicing
their concerns. Combined with two
decades of conflict, that have consumed
much of the country’s resources,
these factors have played a major
role in slowing down the process of
empowering women.
In the past decade, UNDP has put in
place a number of policies and strategies
to mainstream gender throughout its
programmatic activities. In an attempt
to reach women in all aspects of society
and from wide ranging dimensions,
UNDP began the Gender Mainstreaming
Initiative, with the support of the
UNDP Gender Thematic Trust Fund, in
early 2007.
Objectives
In aspiring to achieve the gender
mainstreaming goal, the UNDP Sudan
country office is committed to identifying
and implementing a sound gender strategy
that aims to empower women, so as
to bring gender equality and development
to the Sudanese society.
The project’s specific objectives
are:
• Institutionalize gender mainstreaming
in the country office through the
development of a gender mainstreaming
strategy.
• Strengthen the capacity of
UNDP staff in addressing gender issues
through basic and periodic training
courses.
• Clarify and reaffirm UNDP’s
mandate, policies and commitment to
the promotion of gender equality.
• Integrate a gender perspective
into all polices and programmes across
each core priority of UNDP to ensure
that men and women fully participate
in and benefit from the development
outcome.
Snapshots of the project's major achievements
• Developed a UNDP Gender Mainstreaming
Forward-looking Strategy 2007-2011.
The Strategy was developed based on
UNDP’s international gender
policy, a gender lens review of documents
and interviews and consultations,
which were carried out by a consultant
in the UNDP CO. The Strategy was founded
on UNDP’s gender policy that
is based on a two –pronged approach
to achieving gender equality. The
aim of the Strategy is to sustain
the efforts to reach the United Nations
Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).
The first phase (2007-2008) will be
followed by a mid-term review and
the feedback received will enhance
the implementation of the Strategy
up to 2011.
• The project helped identify
the priorities and future entry points
for gender equality and women’s
empowerment to be considered in UNDP
Country Programme Action Plan 2009-
2012,
• The project flagged a
critical need for assessing national
counterparts needs for training and
capacity development. For this end,
UNDP mobilized a total 150.000 USD
to asses and help bring up the capacities
of the Ministries responsible for
gender issues such as the Ministry
of Social welfare Women and child
affair in northern sudan and the Ministry
of Gender in Southern Sudan
Future
Priorities
• Invest dedicated resources
in specific interventions that empower
women, reduce their vulnerability,
build their leadership, provide them
with access to resources, and protect
their human rights.
• The Gender Mainstreaming Strategy
will strengthen the capacity of the
UNDP CO to address Sudan’s critical
gender issues: the feminization of
poverty; HIV/AIDS; the vulnerability
of women and girls to crises and internal
conflicts and violation of their rights;
their exclusion from decision-making;
and their lack of access to resources
and energy sources. These are core
UNDP priorities, and each has a gender
dimension that UNDP needs to address.
• To improve the internal capacities
of UNDP Country Office staff, it is
important to provide gender analysis
training, building on the workshop
on “gender mainstreaming in
UNDP work” that was organized
in Khartoum in March 2004.
• Enhance the capacity of staff
to apply gender analysis techniques
in the pre-planning stages of policy
advisory services, knowledge products,
and services that promote gender equality
and women’s empowerment.
