The promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women is central to the mandate of UNDP and intrinsic to its development approach. This effort includes advocating for women’s and girls’ equal rights, Combatting discriminatory practices and challenging the roles and stereotypes that propagate inequalities and exclusion.

The corporate UNDP gender equality strategy, 2014-2017, was presented at a pivotal time in the sphere of global policy development. While the world works to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, efforts are underway to devise a new set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) to guide global development beyond 2015. One of the proposed SDGs is to achieve Gender Equality and Empower all Women and Girls. At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012, participants reached consensus on the need for a more expansive development paradigm based on inclusiveness, equality and sustainability.

Assure Gender Mainstreaming for Inclusive Development (at the programming level)