Gender in Europe & CIS

Gender in region of Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States

“It is impossible to realize our goals while discriminating against half the human race.” 
KOFI ANNAN, Former Secretary General of the United Nations

Human development, as a process of enlarging people’s choices, cannot occur when the choices of half of humanity are restricted. Targeted actions aimed at empowering women and addressing gender inequities in the social and economic sphere, as well as in terms of civil and political rights, must be taken alongside efforts to integrate the different needs of men and women into the development process.

The last decades have been characterized by turbulent changes and transition in the region. This have had multiple complex impacts on both women and men. However, transition and development processes in the region have occurred without the full participation of women, weakening women’s position in political and socio-economic life. These trends need to be reversed, in order to ensure that the benefits of transition equally reach both sexes. Major challenges include:

• weak UNDP internal capacities to implement and monitor its gender-related commitments; and
• under-developed state capacity to produce greater gender equality in line with international commitments and national legislation

Therefore UNDP’s effort to address gender inequality in this region focuses on promoting and implementing initiatives that lead to improvements in national capacities to identify and advance gender equality considerations into all policy and decision making processes (i.e. gender mainstreaming). 

Recommended Resources

Gender Mainstreaming in Practice: A Toolkit
Over 10 years have passed since the United Nations formally recognized that gender equality is necessary to ensure equitable and sustainable human development. Since then, the integration of a gender perspective into programming and policy-making – Gender Mainstreaming – has become a key priority. To help implement this mandate, the Bratislava Regional Centre has published Gender Mainstreaming in Practice: A Toolkit. It presents the methodology behind gender mainstreaming based on best practices, and provides examples of how gender mainstreaming can be implemented through policy-making and programming across Europe, the CIS, and beyond. Read more and download the Toolkit...

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