Gender equality is a human right and an internationally agreed goal of development policy. Gender-specific discrimination and violence against women caused by, for example, harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage must be brought to an end. Implementing national and international strategies and obligations, allocating funds, and planning and carrying out corresponding measures are therefore of paramount importance for German development cooperation.
This is set out in the cross-sectoral strategy on Gender Equality in German Development Policy of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The strategy emphasises that gender equality is both a development goal and a guiding principle and quality benchmark for all German development cooperation activities. BMZ also adopted a strategy paper on FGM in 2015. It prescribes the systematic integration of measures to combat FGM into technical and financial cooperation and presents practical courses of action.
Objective
Gender equality and women’s rights are strengthened in German development cooperation.
Approach
The programme supports BMZ’s positioning of the issue of gender equality in German development cooperation and in an international context. A key process is the implementation and monitoring of BMZ’s Gender Action Plan 2016-2020 and the accompanying annual road maps. Further examples include the gender-sensitive realisation of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the joint piloting of innovative approaches with TC projects to end harmful traditional practices, for instance in Asia and Africa. The programme also focuses on monitoring and implementing the UN Security Council’s resolution 1325 as well as the follow-up resolutions.
The programme works in four areas:
1. Capacity development in BMZ’s regional and sectoral divisions.
To strengthen the promotion of gender equality and women’s rights in German development policy and cooperation, BMZ’s regional and sectoral divisions are trained to systematically incorporate the topic into countries and sectors. In doing so, they pursue a three-pronged approach consisting of empowerment, gender mainstreaming and policy dialogue. Through training and technical input, the programme enables BMZ’s staff to design development concepts and strategies in a gender-sensitive manner and thus successfully contribute to fulfilling international obligations for the promotion of gender quality and women’s rights.
2. Strengthening the portfolio for gender equality and women’s rights
To increase development engagement in this field, the programme draws on lessons learned and tried-and-tested approaches and supports BMZ in initiating new projects that set out to promote gender equality and women’s rights. It also develops innovative, forward-looking measures such as the promotion of women’s rights through digital technologies and specific approaches for women and girls in the context of conflict and migration.
3. Enhancing gender expertise in German implementing organisations
The programme advises German implementing organisations on how to strengthen gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment in their organisations and how to integrate these topics into their processes. It enhances staff expertise with a view to supporting implementation in the respective working context. As a result, these issues are given greater consideration in programme planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting. Information, guidelines and good practices and examples are made available on the gender knowledge platform gender-in-german-development.net.
4. Working with local, regional and international actors
To enhance impact, German development cooperation works with local, regional and international actors. The programme aims to step up and expand such partnerships. It promotes the exchange of experience through dialogue forums and joint events, and organises development activities in collaboration with implementing partners. One example in this regard is the collaboration with the joint programme of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in which tried-and-tested approaches developed by German development cooperation for ending female genital mutilation are put into practice.
Results
In recent years, progress has been made in gender equality at various levels: At the international level, for example, programme support has led to the inclusion of development aspects in documents compiled by the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Germany also successfully lobbied for gender equality to be recognised as a Sustainable Development Goal in its own right (SDG 5) and for comprehensive gender mainstreaming in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
In Germany, the programme has advised BMZ in a number of areas, including the revision of its new strategy on Gender Equality in German Development Policy (2014). It also assisted in the elaboration of the BMZ Gender Action Plan 2016-2020 (BMZ GAP II) and the accompanying road maps (2016).
The programme has successfully contributed to integrating gender equality to a greater extent in the standard processes of implementing organisations – for instance, through the incorporation of the issue in the guidelines for results-based monitoring and the requirement to conduct a gender analysis as part of project preparation.