Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment

The MDG-F's work is rooted in the recognition that gender equality and women's empowerment are vital for the realization of human rights for all. In order to achieve gender equality, it is necessary to build a society in which women and men share equally in the distribution of power and influence and have equal access to education, health, decent work and livelihoods.

 

As a result, the MDG-F pioneered a dual strategy to strengthen women's rights and promote gender equality, with 13 programmes that directly bolstered women’s representation in decision-making processes, increased women´s capabilities, improved their access to resources and opportunities, and reduced their vulnerability to violence and conflict. Our work also improved legal systems to respect women’s rights, particularly those of marginalized indigenous and ethnic minority groups. As the indirect approach in our dual strategy, a gender perspective was incorporated into programmes across all our other thematic windows.

 

These programmes were designed to address gender equality in a broad and holistic manner, thereby contributing to the fulfillment of the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of women and girls, and supporting efforts towards MDG 3, achieving gender parity in education.

 

Among our successes: In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the MDG-F conducted the first survey on gender-based violence in the workplace and supported the opening of the first-ever integrated shelter and facility to reduce violence against women in Gaza. Its work spurred the implementation of a National Strategy to combat gender-based violence.

 

In Nicaragua, nearly 114,000 women were consulted for the formulation of gender responsive budgets and local gender policies, and more than 23,000 women participated in local government decision-making processes, both of which led to gender mainstreaming in the national budget. In Ethiopia, the MDG-F targeted 100,000 adolescent girls and women with literacy training, business skills and access to credit to increase their economic opportunities, as well as HIV/AIDS and reproductive health education. And in Bangladesh, 24,000 people received awareness training on gender-based violence, including journalists, employers, judges, prosecutors, government officials, sex workers and many others.