Gender Mainstreaming In Practice: A Toolkit

2nd edition 2004; 3rd edition 2007

How is gender mainstreaming relevant to the work that I am doing? Is it relevant for this region? Why should I do it? And, even if I understand its relevance, how am I supposed to implement it? What, concretely, do I need to do? These are questions commonly raised by practitioners engaged in public policy and development work, and these are the questions this toolkit addresses.

By means of introduction to this toolkit, the following pages provide information and guidance in four key areas:

1. About this Toolkit: What are its goals? Whom is it for? How should I use it?
2. What is Gender Mainstreaming?
3. Gender Mainstreaming in the Context of Europe and the CIS: Regional Challenges
4. Moving Forward in Gender Mainstreaming

The goals of this toolkit are to present a comprehensive understanding of what gender mainstreaming is; and to provide detailed guidance on how gender mainstreaming can be put into practice.

This toolkit is primarily designed for public policy and development practitioners who are not experts in gender issues, but who nonetheless are charged with the day-to-day responsibility of gender mainstreaming. These professionals might work within UNDP and other UN organizations on specific policy or development projects, or within national governments and other policy-making bodies. This toolkit is meant to guide these professionals in their work. Because most users will not be gender specialists, the language, examples, and detail of the toolkit are geared accordingly.