This Guide to Mainstreaming Gender into UNDP-GEF Projects on Chemicals and Wastes was developed in February 2017 to support the chemicals and waste programmes and projects in countries at the national and regional levels. It is intended to guide UNDP MPU/Chemicals Regional Technical Advisors, UNDP Country Offices, project teams, consultants, and implementing partners by describing the steps that should be taken to ensure that gender considerations are an integral part of projects on chemicals and wastes.
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.”
A gender-responsive National Action Plan (NAP) is a national plan on chemials management that includes gender aspects. Applying gender-responsive approaches to the development process of a NAP requires attention to gender throughout the iterative cycle of planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. It also means consideration of gender issues in the crosscutting dimensions, including institutional arrangements, capacity development, financing and information sharing related to the NAP process, such as equal participation and influence in decision-making processes and equal access to financial resources and capacity-building for all genders.