Main priorities and initiatives

We have four main areas of focus:

Gender, democracy, peace and conflict- We promote women’s participation and representation in democratic processes, leadership and decision-making. We also provide support in favour of achieving the Commonwealth’s target of having women constituting at least 30 per cent of representatives involved in peace negotiation, conflict management, democratic processes and peace education. The Secretariat has over the years provided technical support, tools and guidelines to member countries in the area of gender, conflict and peace management as well as monitoring of elections from a gender perspective.

Gender, human rights and law –The development of gender responsive laws, judicial processes, customs and practices in keeping with accepted human rights standards are promoted. Activities being implemented support the achievement of gender equality through endorsing ratification of human rights instruments and implementing women-centred laws. These include: providing technical assistance to governments in their work on issues such as addressing violence against women; preparing a report on the Commonwealth's stand on the issue of indigenous women’s rights; facilitating dialogues between custodians of culture and the judiciary to ensure that women's constitutional guarantees are not undermined. Technical and financial support was provided to convene a dialogue at the local level in Kenya between the judiciary, traditional chiefs and members of the land disputes tribunal to address women’s access to justice and their ownership of property.

Gender, poverty eradication and economic empowerment– We aim to build awareness amongst Finance Ministers and non-government partners on mainstreaming gender by formulating and implementing economic policies and programmes at national, regional and international levels. For example, we have brokered partnerships with Ministers of Finance which have influenced the institutionalisation of gender responsive budgeting (click here for definition) in some member countries, as well as the commitment to review progress on this every two years, through a reporting mechanism. Ground breaking and innovative research, thinking and conceptualisation have been realised bringing out the gender impacts of key macro-economic areas as taxation, social protection in the informal sector, trade and financing for development processes and mechanisms. Key partnerships have been brokered and sustained in this area with the European Union, World Trade Organisation and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Gender and HIV/AIDS – Work in this area aims to enhance integration of gender issues in HIV interventions through policy advocacy, research and information dissemination. A pan-Commonwealth research has been initiated focusing on ‘unpaid work in HIV care – gender and policy dimensions’ which will bring the voices of unpaid carers to the policy arena.