BACKGROUND PAPER on United Nations Development Programme (UNDP ...

poverty. Major areas of focus are the relationship between trade and poverty
reduction and the strengthening of the bargaining power of countries in World Trade
Organisation (WTO) negotiations.
6.1 Gender and Poverty Reduction
Mainstreaming gender into poverty reduction policies and interventions
There have been profound changes in the status and role of women over the past
two decades. The Beijing+5 review noted progress in most countries including
narrowing gender gaps in education and health, but progress has been slow and
uneven. Of the world's 1 billion poorest people, an estimated three-fifths are women
and girls. Of the nearly 1 billion adults in the world who cannot read, two thirds are
female. Women also represent a growing proportion of people living with HIV/AIDS.
In addition to basic inequalities in access to education and resources, and an
unequal share of the burdens of poverty, women continue to be under-represented
in formal decision-making structures.
UNDP advocates for participatory approaches to budgeting, creating strategies and
targets aimed at reducing gender disparities, examining linkages between poverty
reduction and women's empowerment, and improving national capacity for genderdisaggregated
monitoring and analyses. These strategic elements represent the
crux of UNDP's work on mainstreaming gender into poverty reduction policies and
interventions.
Working in more than 160 programme countries and territories, UNDP:
• promotes an enabling environment for the inclusion of gender equality
objectives into national policy and strategy;
• mainstreams gender concerns across all programme areas;
• fosters networks and partnerships and the creation of a wide community of
knowledge to share good practices;
• co-ordinates the UN response to country demands with strategic and high
impact interventions that bring UN agencies and development partners together
around the CCA/ UNDAF and Millennium Development Goals.
As scorekeeper and campaign manager for progress towards achieving the
Millennium Development Goals, UNDP has the responsibility to highlight and focus
attention and resources on the gender dimensions of these goals. In addition, it has
a role to play in monitoring disparities between men and women in the achievement
of MDGs, in flagging gender gaps, and in ensuring gender monitoring of all goals
and indicators.
Civil Society, Participation and Aid Coordination
Civil Society and Participation
"Our partnerships with civil society organizations are going to be as
important as our partnerships with governments in shaping the future of
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