Gender Mainstreaming of Development Policies needed!
The United Nations Organization (UNO) presented its priorities for 2011. Gender equality is on the agenda, among with sustainable development, climate change, global security, human rights and social and crisis response to nuclear disarmament. According to the secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, the gender equality objective implies combatting violence against women and increasing the number of female leaders at the UN. Moreover, most other development issues like climate change as well as peace and security necessitate involving women’s visions in order to achieve better results.
Actually, all UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG) are highly interconnected with gender equalilty. A reduction of gender inequality in terms of education, employment, income and political participation is not only fruitful for women, but for all of society, as it promotes economic growth. Therewith, gender equality (MDG 3) reduces poverty (MDG 1), increases education (MDG 2) and decreases maternal and child mortality (MDG 4 and 5) as well as deseases (MDG 6). Gender equality is also proved to make economic progress more sustainable and environment-friendly (MDG7). Consequently, besides targeted women-specific policies, all development policies should be gender-mainstreamed.
Source: Breaking news today ; UN’s MDGs; blog autor’s own thoughts