Promoting Gender Equality in Development Cooperation

Description:
Policy / Gender equality is at the centre of Sida's mission to promote and create conditions for poverty reduction in partner countries. Mainstreaming gender equality is a strategy for poverty reduction for achieving sustainable development for all, by supporting the right of choice, empowerment and provision of resources.
To Sida gender equality involves ensuring that all human beings - women, men, boys and girls - are considered equal and treated equally in terms of dignity and rights. Gender discrimination is one of the main causes of poverty, and a major obstacle to equitable and sustainable global human development.
The objective of this policy is to ensure that Sida's interventions and actions contribute to gender equality, since it is strongly linked to sustainable development and pro-poor growth in any society.
This policy is an outcome of the 2002 evaluation of Sida's support to the promotion of gender equality, together with recommendations from Sida's departments, Swedish embassies and Swedish civil society organisations.