Human Rights-Based Approach to Programming - UNFPA -

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Human Rights-Based Approach to Programming-
UNFPA -

• SESSION 5
• Gender

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Session Overview

• Introduction to UNFPAs work in gender
• Gender and culture
• Gender mainstreaming
• Gender-responsive budgeting
• Examples of UNFPAs work in gender equality and
  womens empowerment
• Introduction to case study
• Conclusions

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Introduction

• Gender equality and womens empowerment are vital
  aspects of UNFPAs mandate, and gender
  mainstreaming is a cross-cutting approach
  relevant to all programming and policy areas
  within UNFPA and within the UN in general.
• UNFPAs goal in this area is
• gender equality advanced and women and adolescent
  girls empowered to exercise their human rights,
  particularly their reproductive rights, and live
  free of discrimination and violence.

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Gender and Culture

• When focusing on gender equality and womens
  empowerment, it is also essential to take culture
  into account. Cultural or religious attitudes and
  beliefs often have an enormous impact on the
  lives and choices of women and girls. Working
  from within a culture (for example, by working
  with faith-based organizations, religious
  leaders, cultural leaders, etc.) is therefore
  essential to achieving gender equality and
  womens empowerment.

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Gender and Human Rights

• Key to work in gender equality and womens
  empowerment programmes is CEDAW
• UNFPA staff should familiarize themselves with
  this Convention
• it provides a definition of discrimination
  against women
• use CEDAW articles as well as General Comments
  and Concluding Observations to provide
  governments with guidance when designing gender
  polices and laws

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Addressing Gender Across UNFPAs Operations

• Throughout UNFPAs work the promotion of gender
  equality and womens empowerment is both
• a goal in itself
• central to achieving all the other goals to which
  it is committed in both the MDGs and UNFPAs
  Strategic Plan
• UNFPA policies and UNFPA-supported programmes
  emphasize the importance of addressing gender
  equality across its operations
• Gender mainstreaming is thus an integral aspect
  of national development programmes, poverty
  reduction strategies and other types of
  development strategies

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Gender Mainstreaming (1)

• Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process
  of assessing the implications for women and men
  of any planned action including legislation,
  policies or programmesin any area and at all
  levels.

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Gender Mainstreaming (2)

• UNFPAs Strategic Framework for Gender
  Mainstreaming and Womens Empowerment 2008-2011
  lists six priority areas for gender equality
  programming
• setting policy for ICPD and the MDGs (HR, gender
  equality, culture)
• reproductive health
• gender-based violence
• adolescents and youth
• emergency and post-emergency situations
• men and boys

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Gender-Responsive Budgeting

• Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is about
  ensuring that government budgets and the policies
  and programmes that underlie them address the
  needs and interests of individuals who belong to
  different social groups
• GRB is incredibly important if long-term progress
  on gender equality and womens empowerment is to
  be made

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Examples of UNFPAs Gender Work (1)

• Mobilizes support for developing and improving
  gender equality policies and legislation
• Works to eliminate gender-based violence
• Actively engages men and boys as partners and
  agents in promoting gender equality and ending
  gender-based violence against women and girls
• Advocates for gender equality and womens
  empowerment with governments and CSOs, and
  promotes commitment to ICPD goals and CEDAW

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Examples of UNFPAs Gender Work (2)

• Supports capacity development activities that
  raise awareness of womens rights and provide
  women with the services they require, especially
  in the area of sexual and reproductive health
• Promotes gender mainstreaming in all programmes
  and policies (supported by the UNFPA gender
  mainstreaming framework), and also promotes
  gender-responsive budgeting

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Examples of UNFPAs Gender Work (3)

• Supports governments in preparing their reports
  to CEDAW, and thereby helps governments ensure
  accountability for their international human
  rights obligations

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Conclusion Value Added of a HRBA in a Gender
Equality Womens Empowerment Programme (1)

1. Gender equality programmes that integrate the
   principles of participation and inclusion often
   result in bringing together State actors with
   local and national womens groups and gender
   experts.
2. Bringing these groups together in the same room
   fosters a sense of collective ownership of the
   programme and can motivate government agencies,
   particularly at the local level, to contribute
   additional resources to promoting womens human
   rights.

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Conclusion Value Added of a HRBA in a Gender
Equality Womens Empowerment Programme (2)

• Bringing different groups together also fosters a
  common dialogue on issues of importance to
  womens human rights. Such communication is
  useful for reaching solutions on obstacles to
  implementation of gender equality laws and
  policies.

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Conclusion Value Added of a HRBA in a Gender
Equality Womens Empowerment Programme (3)

• A HRBA in a gender programme requires you to
  cultivate a synergistic relationship among
  different stakeholders. Working with both
  rights-holders and duty-bearers is critical for
  sustainable accomplishments in womens human
  rights.
• For example, working only with rights-holders to
  empower them to claim their right to be protected
  from gender-based violence will not be effective
  if similar efforts are not made among the police
  and judiciary to ensure that services are in
  place to respond to women survivors of
  gender-based violence.

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Conclusion Value Added of a HRBA in a Gender
Equality Womens Empowerment Programme (4)

• A HRBA can invigorate womens NGOs and human
  rights NGOs by helping them recognize their roles
  as duty-bearers, not just as charitable
  institutions.
• In addition, learning about their human rights
  can empower women rights-holders. As a result,
  both NGOs and women rights-holders have an
  increased ability to take an active role in
  articulating the communitys needs and assessing
  the effectiveness of institutional responses.

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Conclusion Value Added of a HRBA in a Gender
Equality Womens Empowerment Programme (5)

• Finally, a HRBA ensures that government parties
  become more aware of their legal obligations and
  duties to women. This awareness, coupled with
  specific capacity development activities advances
  the governments ability to progressively work
  towards the realization of womens human rights.