Gender and Inclusion
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in India is committed to the promotion of gender equality and social, economic and political inclusion. The mandate is derived from the fact that inequality -- based on wealth, region, ethnicity and gender is a fundamental concern for human development. Inherited disadvantage in opportunity due to gender, social group and location is wrong for intrinsic reasons as it violates basic principles of human rights. At the same time, there are strong instrumental reasons – inequality of any kind is an obstacle to progress on meeting the Millennium Development Goals and promoting human development.
UNDP aims to advance social inclusion by promoting positive relationships among groups and individuals within communities so that all identify with, belong to, and are not isolated by stereotyping and labelling. Economic inclusion is ensured by creating sustainable livelihoods to reduce gaps in income that force people into poverty and political inclusion is promoted by ensuring that the structures and processes are in place so that everyone has a “voice” in the planning and decision-making that affects their quality of life. Further, we strongly believe that when development is not ‘en-gendered’ it is ‘en-dangered’. It is our core responsibility to ensure that vulnerable and disadvantaged women benefit from all our initiatives across various focus areas of poverty reduction, climate change mitigation and adaptation, environmental sustainability, HIV/AIDS reduction in spread and stigma, democratic governance and disaster risk reduction and management.
To meet the above goals, we:
- Recognise that mainstream as well as targeted interventions can promote gender equality and inclusion.
- Support projects that contribute to reducing gender inequalities and exclusion.
- Work with organisations representing and led by women and people belonging to excluded groups.
- Strongly focus on accountability and communication for achieving sustainable development results, disseminating knowledge and information sharing. We maintain a strong focus on communication (relying on local modes) that also strengthen the processes that enable women and men therein to acquire new knowledge, ideas and analyse decisions and actions.
To achieve these objectives, UNDP focuses on:
- Desegregating social and economic policies: UNDP demonstrates the value added of a convergent approach to address issues of gender inequality and exclusion in the areas of poverty reduction, democratic governance, and environment and energy, and disaster risk reduction.
- Developing community capacity for monitoring and assessment: UNDP has a rich experience in supporting initiatives that empower vulnerable women and men, especially those belonging to excluded groups, to demand accountability. This also helps in generating strong evidence for constructive policy advocacy and engagement.
- Strengthening people’s organisation: As exclusion often results from discriminatory rules and behaviours, initiatives must target group discrimination, with an eye toward improving the relative position of the excluded, including a change in the power relations. UNDP works with people’s organisations to address power relationships.
- Working at all levels of government to tackle social exclusion and poverty: UNDP promotes effective translation of the vision of the government to promote inclusive growth into action on ground.
