Gender & Rights with UNICEF in West and Central Africa
- Countries
- 15 countries in West and Central Africa -Senegal, Gambia, Mauretania, Togo, Sierra Leone, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, CAR, Ghana, Liberia and Benin
- Status
- Complete
- Duration
- 2009-2013
- Partner
- UNICEF Country Offices
KIT Gender was asked by UNICEF to lend its specific expertise on linking gender and rights in the development of its global policy on gender and rights. The project was innovative in that the focus was on gender and child rights and included not only building individual staff capacities, but also supporting organisational change, building accountability and also dealing with knowledge management.
Deepening expertise and sharing best practice
A major conclusion of the ‘Global Evaluation of Gender Policy’ (2007-08) was that UNICEF’s Human Rights Approach had not succeeded in systematically furthering gender equality. UNICEF therefore decided to develop a new global gender equality policy and to allocate substantial funding to ensure its implementation.
As a result of the work, the West and Central Africa Regional Office and 14 national offices now have greater understanding of, expertise in, and commitment to, addressing gender equality concerns within their primary objective of realising child rights.
During the four year implementation period an understanding of the link between gender equality and child rights was developed. This resulted in a continuous improvement of teaching materials and methodologies for auditing, and generated a culture of best practice.