Joint Work Programme for Gender Equality

Cities Alliance believes strongly that women are sources of positive and transformational change in cities, and as a partnership we are committed to helping make this change happen.

Achieving Gender Equality in City Development

Women and men live and use cities in very different ways. Yet, in many cases, urban planning and policies do not take these differences into consideration – leading to exclusion and lost opportunity for both women and society in general.

Women make up half the world’s population yet represent 70 per cent of the world’s poor.

Source: The Global Poverty Project

Cities Alliance is committed to helping make this change happen. The Cities Alliance Board approved Gender as a second thematic pillar in our Medium-Term Strategy for 2014 – 2017, as well as a cross-cutting theme in all our work.

Cities Alliance members – many of whom have their own gender programmes – have established a Joint Work Programme (JWP) that will serve as a highly visible platform for promoting the role of women in development.

The JWP will deliver programming tools as well as evidence based advocacy, diagnostic, knowledge and research products.

It will also ensure that sound gender-responsive programming has been incorporated into each of the four Cities Alliance business lines – Country Programmes, Catalytic Fund, Analytic and Strategic Activities, and Communications and Advocacy.

Gender Action Plan

The Gender Action Plan is the result of participatory engagements between the Gender Equality Team and members of staff, combined with baseline assessments of priority areas. The assessment present key findings, recommendations for follow up action and targets for the Secretariat. Monitoring will take place every six months for the first two years.

Download the Action Plan Mainstreaming Gender in the Cities Alliance Secretariat

Results

The first Cities Alliance Gender Equality Strategy was produced in 2014, which laid the foundation for the JWP

A Concept Note for cooperation and outputs drafted

An Expert Group Meeting to discuss gender perspectives on the New Urban Agenda was organised by Cities Alliance, UN Women, UN-Habitat, and the Huairou Commission in New York on 13 June 2016.