February 2004

• UNIFEM and Gender 
• Gender Issues in UNDP-Supported State Human Development Reports
• Gender Mainstreaming in UNFPA programme
• WFP's Gender Policy 2003-2007
• Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS

Women's empowerment and gender equality are central to all development priorities and have gained credence and commitment in the 28 years since the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) was established. The Millennium Declaration of 2000 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), endorsed by all United Nations Member States, strongly affirm gender equality and women's empowerment as goals in their own right, as well as prerequisites to achieving all the other goals.

Set up to be an aid to and advocate for women of the developing world, UNIFEM provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies that promote women's human rights, political participation and economic security. Working with and in partnership with UN organizations, governments and NGOs, UNIFEM works to promote gender equality, linking women's issues and concerns to national, regional and global agendas. Fostering collaboration, it provides technical expertise on gender mainstreaming and women's empowerment strategies.

UNIFEM's priorities are guided by the Beijing Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. Alongside the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), these documents contain concrete road maps for securing gender equality. In South Asia, they are also guided by the Consensus arising out of the Ministerial level Regional Biennial Review meetings that UNIFEM has been organizing every two years since 1996, to follow-up on the progress on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. This is a collective journey undertaken in partnership with governments of the region, key NGOs, the SAARC Secretariat, experts, activists and collaborating UN agencies. A range of institutional collaborations and mechanisms, such as an MoU with the SAARC Secretariat on Gender Issues, an MoU with the Government of India as well as with His Majesty's Government of Nepal, are further enabling mechanisms for its work.

The realization of women's human right to equality, freedom from discrimination, and full participation in decision-making is incumbent on the effective implementation of these agreements. However, as the Outcome Document and the UNIFEM Progress of the World's Women (2000 and 2002), show, progress has been slow and uneven in meeting the goals set at Beijing. New challenges, related to policies and practices of economic globalization, problems without borders, and fragmentation and insecurity, have since emerged, calling for a strengthened gender equality response.

In a context of increasing global poverty and a widening gap between rich and poor, women and men, UNIFEM promotes the realization of women's human rights and their human security. Using an empowerment approach and a rights-based framework, it focuses on addressing feminized poverty and ending violence against women. Working to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS among women and girls and promote gender equality in democratic governance in times of peace as well as in recovery from war, gender inequality remains the connecting thread in all its work. In shaping its work, UNIFEM notes these threats, using optimally the opportunities being created by a strong articulation by the women's movement, governments, donors and NGOs on the imperative of gender mainstreaming, growing judicial and legislative activism, institutional development and women's strong networks.

With the exacerbation of feminized poverty, and its attendant fall-outs for women, such as increased vulnerability to violence, trafficking, migration, and HIV/AIDS, UNIFEM focuses on reducing feminized poverty and exclusion. Focusing on the inclusion of women in the context of globalization and liberalization, it highlights its gender differentiated impact, stressing the need to reorient macro-economic processes, which are gender just. At the regional and national level, it works to mainstream a gender perspective in trade and macro-economic policy-making, increasing women's access to opportunities and influence on markets for labour, goods and services. To expand economic opportunities for poor women, it supports the mainstreaming of gender-responsive, rights-based poverty reduction strategies in the PRSPs, the MDGs, trade agreements, and other policy and coordination instruments.

With regional initiatives focusing on the gendered price of economic adjustment and the invisibility of women workers, efforts have been made to increase the visibility of women's contribution in the economy, engender data and statistics, cross the gender-based digital divide, and to respond to the concerns of vulnerable groups, such as home-based workers, migrant women, tribal women and mountain women. In Nepal, for example, sustained work on women migrant workers enabled the lifting of the ban on migration of Nepali women in the organized sector to Gulf countries, paving the way for safe migration mechanisms. In order to translate policy commitments into resources and to assist in the equitable use of existing resources, it has undertaken gender budgeting initiatives in select countries of South Asia in partnership with governments, distinguished economists and feminists, research institutions, the UN system and key women's NGOs from the region.

To promote women's human rights, UNIFEM's interventions broadly focus on realizing women's human rights by using a holistic and multi-dimensional approach. Its efforts are directed at deepening and expanding the process of implementation and reporting on CEDAW in South Asia, in close partnership with Governments, NGOs and CEDAW Committee members. Facilitating the implementation of human rights instruments to bring laws into conformity with human rights standards, it supports efforts to make legal and judicial systems more responsive and gender equal to the concerns of women affected by violence. Encouraging regional learning and sharing, its interventions involve piloting community-based Zero Violence Zone initiatives, and strengthening the alliance between the law enforcement machinery and civil society

organizations. By using a multidisciplinary response to curb violence, it has initiated a dialogue on the interplay of masculinity, gender and violence against women, empowering women with information on support services and their legal rights, and supporting efforts to increase the capacity of law enforcement agencies. Promoting well-defined preventive, protective and prosecution strategies to reduce trafficking of women and children, it has catalyzed regional cooperation among all stakeholders to stop human trafficking in South Asia, strengthening the accountability of key actors to counter the impunity with which acts of violence occur.

Bringing a gender equality perspective to peace negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal, UNIFEM has extended support to engender the peace process with partners in the UN as well as with women's groups. It has worked with women's groups in the region through the SAARC NGO Forum on Peace and processes are ongoing with women's groups to design a conceptual human rights framework to intervene in formal peace building processes.

While HIV/AIDS is a health and development issue, the pandemic is also a gender equality issue. UNIFEM brings a gender equality and human rights perspective to partnerships forged through UNAIDS with the UN system, national AIDS councils, women's and government organizations at the global, regional and national level. It spearheads holistic strategies to address HIV/AIDS by drawing links to violence against women, feminized poverty, and gender justice in post-conflict reconstruction. Its programme on Gender and HIV/AIDS seeks to address vulnerabilities that put women at risk to HIV/AIDS, address gender inequalities in the context of care, treatment and support for women living with HIV/AIDS (WLHAs), build the capacities of UNIFEM partners and forge linkages between positive women's networks, government and civil society. Support is also being extended to a unique pilot on Equalizing Gender Relations in the context of HIV/AIDS in partnership with the Indian Railways in Vijaywada with the South Central Railways.

Promoting women's leadership to ensure their equal voice in shaping policies that affect their lives and choices, UNIFEM promotes a regional dialogue on gender, governance and rights. Building the capacity of women in governance, it creates spaces and platforms for women in South Asia, to articulate their concerns, linking them to policy-makers. Its initiatives focus on mainstreaming gender in macro policy planning processes, strengthening the capacity of national women's machineries, promoting women's access to information, transparency and accountability from governments, NGOs and other organizations with regard to globally agreed commitments to achieve gender equality.

These commitments will continue to be distant hopes for women if gender equality remains elusive. Today there is a global consensus that unless gender disparities are removed, the low status of women acts as a drag on all indicators, and that no development can be sustainable without the development of women. For UNIFEM, gender equality, gender equity and gender justice are at the core of its development agenda, as the central principle of a development process that benefits both women and men equally.

Gender Issues in UNDP-Supported State Human Development Reports 2

State Human Development Reports (HDRs) have emerged as a powerful tool for informing human development policy decisions at the national and the State level. The ownership of the State HDRs rests with the State governments and the exercise is supported by the Planning Commission, Government of India and through the Human Development Resource Centre (HDRC), UNDP. The process of State HDR preparation is underway in 27 Indian States. Seven States have already prepared their State HDRs and eight State HDRs are being finalised. Along with decentralisation and governance, gender is an important dimension of analysis in the State HDRs, both in the form of specific chapters on gender as also highlighting gender concerns in the sectoral analysis of education, health, livelihoods and governance.

The gender chapter in State HDRs provides much needed space to women's issues, particularly those of inequality in resources and opportunities. The chapters deal with issues of women's poverty — both that of income and human poverty.

The strength of State HDRs is in the preparatory process and its analysis of issues through a human development perspective, disaggregated for districts_especially highlighting spatial disparities within States and disparities between social groups. The starting point of the analysis is the computation of district wise indices such as the Human Development Index (HDI), Gender Development Index (GDI) and in some cases the Human Poverty Index (HPI). The States of Assam, Gujarat and UP have included HPI in their analysis. At the global level, the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is computed for a more comprehensive comparison of women's opportunities rather than their capabilities. Unfortunately, GEM for India is not being computed because of paucity of data.

One of the major constraints in gender analysis, and therefore in effective policymaking, is non -availability of reliable sex-disaggregated data. The State HDR exercise has a significant effect both in instrumental terms of collation/ compilation of gender related data for purposes of index construction as also the normative value of sensitising the need for more reliable data at the district and local levels, including the training of data providers and users.

An analysis of gender concerns in SHDRs highlights the following key issues: The status of women is contingent upon the general development of a region as also on the socio-cultural characteristics of the region. For example, the Madhya Pradesh HDR (1995) concluded that the position of women varies across regions and according to the economic status of the household and its place in the caste hierarchy. The Sikkim HDR (2001) highlights the role of women's economic contribution, socio-cultural autonomy, authority, and involvement in the decision-making process within the household as determinants of their status and prospects.

Intra-state gender disparities persist in all the seven States irrespective of the level of development. Six States, Madhya Pradesh (1998), Karnataka (1999), Sikkim (2001), Rajasthan (2002), Himachal Pradesh (2003), Tamil Nadu (2003), have computed district wise Gender related development index (GDI), which have indicated wide variations in the GDI within the States.

Women suffer from double deprivation of low attainments and wide gender differentials across all spheres _health, education, livelihoods and decision- making:

Health _ SHDRs highlight serious gender gaps in health outcomes such as mortality and morbidity rates and life expectancy. High fertility rates and low mean age at marriage has a debilitating impact on health of girls and women. Diseases like anemia, stemming from nutritional deficiency, is also highlighted. The increasing numbers and vulnerability of women to HIV/AIDS as also issues pertaining to mental health of women has been taken cognizance of in the State HDRs of Maharashtra (2002) and Himachal Pradesh (2003). Karnataka HDR (1999) highlighted concerns of occupational health. It demanded that violence against women be treated as a health issue. While Tamil Nadu HDR (2003) stressed on understanding women's health issues from a rights based perspective the Madhya Pradesh HDR (1995) focused on improving the provision of health services in the State.

Education _ The SHDRs have highlighted low attainments and wide gender gaps in the education sector as the critical areas of concern. The analysis recognizes poverty as being the major deterrent for girl's education. Poverty also leads to discriminatory hiring and wage practices that in turn are translated into lower expenditure levels on female education within families. Issues of distance from schools, availability of female teachers, separate schools, toilets for girls and flexible timings have been raised and addressed by the State HDRs. The Madhya Pradesh HDR (1995) highlighted the adverse impact of low female literacy rates on women's access to employment and their empowerment. The Maharashtra HDR (2002) noted higher illiteracy rates among women belonging to poor households or those headed by women, female informal sector workers and women from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST). Tamil Nadu (2003) HDR stressed the need for gender sensitization of teachers. Himachal Pradesh HDR (2003) quoted parental motivation and State priority to education as the driving force for achieving gender parity in education.

Livelihoods : A general observation across the State HDRs was that most women workers in India are engaged in agriculture, where livelihoods are insecure and wages are low. There also exists a significant gender gap in terms of wages. Women's unpaid work is "invisible" and unrecognized both socially and in the national accounting schemes. State HDRs for both the Southern States of Karnataka (1999) and Tamil Nadu (2003) focused on women' s access to credit and Self Help Groups (Shags). The HP HDR (2003) documented the mobility constraint faced by women due to high out-migration by males.

Decision Making: Women are under-represented in governance and decision-making positions at all levels. Participation of women in the public sphere as far as political representation is concerned, depends upon the progress made in economic and domestic spheres. The Madhya Pradesh (1995) HDR documented the growing awareness amongst women of their crucial roles as Panchayat members and as representatives of women. However, all State HDRs have pointed out very clearly that presence in local bodies does not guarantee women's effective participation in decision-making. Challenges faced by women in the electoral process such as women being elected as proxy candidates, intimidation of independent women candidates and other such constraints still persist as reported in the SHDRs.

Gender Equality is essential for equitable and sustainable development. This is the core message emerging from the State HDRs. To achieve gender parity, SHDRs recommend: more effective implementation of existing policies; forging of partnerships between Government and civil society to address gender issues; establishing gender equality as a monitorable goal for each department and organization; gender sensitization of elected members of democratic institutions; collation and generation of gender disaggregated data across various human development indicators.

Gender Mainstreaming in UNFPA programme 3

Gender mainstreaming is an integral component of UNFPA supported 6th country programme which started in year 2003. The programme aims at increasing access to a range of quality reproductive health services, supporting population & development strategies and advocacy/IEC. UNFPA is mandated to promote gender equity, equality and women's empowerment as reflected in the Programme of action endorsed at the International conference on Population and Development in 1994

UNFPA supported programme will have outputs to be pursued at the national, state and district level. At the national level within the population and development strategies sub programme, interventions are designed to promote rights perspectives in the policy instruments in the social development sector. The programme also envisages capacity building of senior programme managers with special reference to gender mainstreaming. Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) have immense potential for bringing gender issues in the development agenda of panchayats. A programme is being supported through the department of rural development for capacity building of PRI members with special reference to management of gender sensitive health services.

At the level of states, UNFPA programme supports District plan of operations for 30 districts scattered across 5 states of Rajasthan, M.P., Gujarat, Orissa and Maharastra. In the DPOs, one output specifically refers to better organizing and articulation of demand of RH services at the level of the community. This is being achieved through orientation of women group members on reproductive rights and health, quality of care issues. On the supply side, programme managers and service providers will also orient on gender issues, so that key concerns regarding quality of reproductive health services from gender dimensions are addressed.

Gender based violence (GBV) is yet to be recognized as a public health problem, although information from several large-scale datasets indicates high level of prevalence in different parts of the country. UNFPA programme supports interventions at community level to create awareness on GBV, its consequences on reproductive health and also necessity of community support mechanism. Similarly, on supply side service providers are being oriented on GBV issues.

UNFPA is also supporting the process of gender mainstreaming in RCH2. It is being proposed that gender mainstreaming of the RCH programmes should lead to better access and availability of a package of RCH services. The issues of equity are linked and needs to be addressed. UNFPA recently commissioned a review on the evidence based interventions for RCH services which will help in reducing gender inequities. Review suggested that service providers should be working closer to the communities, which will mean enhancing availability of women health care providers. Moving technology closer to the communities, removing financial barriers for access to services through innovative demand side financing options and making services responsive and accountable are other suggested interventions.

UNFPA programme is also focused on advocacy interventions in the area of age at marriage for girls, sex selective abortions, reproductive rights and gender based violence. It is envisaged that advocacy with political leaders, media and the members of civil society will help in facilitating informed debate on these issues, leading to gender equity and equality.

WFP's Gender Policy 2003-2007 4

The World Food Programme (WFP) mission is to provide access to food to hungry men, women and children in situations of acute and chronic food insecurity, thus contributing to ensuring household food security. The advancement of women and gender issues has been high on WFP's agenda since the 1985 World Conference on Women in Nairobi. In 1987, WFP established gender policy principles, which were endorsed by the then Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes. It proposed an effective involvement of women in food-assisted interventions.

WFP's next major gender initiative, the Commitments to Women 1996-2001 was developed at the time of the 1995 World Conference on Women, in Beijing. The Commitments were based on the premise that targeting women as programme participants and direct food recipients is key to ensuring that more food reaches them and their children. The five Commitments aimed at reducing gender-specific inequalities that related to food security of the poorest.

Quantitative and qualitative global targets were set for each Commitment. Many stakeholders appreciated this, seeing it as giving the required impetus to the forefront of a largely operations-oriented organization. Thus WFP Commitments even became a model for partner agencies.

Based on the findings of several reviews and the lessons learnt from these Commitments, WFP Gender Policy 2003-2007 was formulated and approved by the Executive Board in 2002. This policy established eight Enhanced Commitments to Women in the areas of programming, advocacy and human resources with the following global or country-level targets:

Enhanced Commitment I: Meet the specific nutritional requirement of expectant and nursing mothers andadolescent girls, and raise their health and nutrition awareness.

WFP has decided to conduct enhanced commitment to women (ECW) baseline surveys in about 40 countries worldwide in 2004 including India in order to establish baseline data to facilitate final analysis of the implementation of the gender policy approved by the Executive Board.

Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS 5

On February 2, 2004 the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS was launched in London by UNAIDS. The Coalition is a new initiative made up of activists, government representatives, community workers and celebrities, that seek to stimulate concrete action on the ground to improve the daily lives of women and girls. The Coalition will focus on preventing new HIV infections among women and girls, promoting equal access to HIV care and treatment, accelerating microbicides research, protecting women's property and inheritance rights and reducing violence against women.

The overall direction and guidance of the Global Coalition is provided by a high-level Steering Committee which meets once a year and includes 25 leaders from a range of different constituencies. From India, Ms. Kousalya, president of the Positive Women's Network of South India is member of the Steering Committee. At the launch of the Coalition Ms. Kousalya stressed the importance of treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS, juridical sensitization, programmes for young people and linkages with government programmes on HIV/AIDS.

In 2004 the World AIDS Campaign focuses on Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS. The Coalition and the Campaign will work closely together during 2004.

To learn more about the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS see www.unaids.org/en/events/coalition_women_and_aids.asp

To learn more about the World AIDS Campaign 2004 see www.unaids.org/en/events/campaigns.asp