Webinar 5: Gender in the UN System

A Gender Action Plan (GAP) is the plan for gender activities that an institution has adopted for itself. Its purpose is to make the institutions’ activities more effective, efficient, and successful by addressing existing gender inequalities and redefining women’s and men’s gender roles and relations through guidance on gender mainstreaming. Several UN Conventions, Frameworks, and Organizations have their own Gender Action Plans, e.g. the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions; Minamata Convention; the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Gender focal points are change agents whose overriding role is to advocate for increased attention to and integration of gender equality and women’s empowerment in their agency’s policy and programming and in the related work of development partners. Gender focal points serve as a hub for new information on gender equality and as a conduit for information on what has worked well in the organization. The role of gender focal points differs somewhat from country to country and from agency to agency, depending on where they are placed within the organization and what kind of gender architecture the organization has in place. A gender focal point is not, however, intended to serve as a substitute for a full-time institutional gender specialist. The focal point’s role is often more one of advocacy and facilitating communication and connections related to gender equality and women’s empowerment, but may at times involve providing gender expertise or assisting colleagues and development partners in identifying potential national or international consultants or organizations that have this expertise. Basic functions may include coordinating the organization’s/office’s/program’s gender mainstreaming strategy; contributing gender information and technical support for inclusion of gender issues; supporting capacity development on gender equality within the organization; knowledge management; and coordination on interagency initiatives, among others. ​

Gender mainstreaming refers to “the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.”