BACKGROUND

The United Nations Development Group (UNDG) decided at the end of 1999 to discontinue the UNDG Sub-group on Gender. This created a serious gap in the inter-agency work on strengthening the mainstreaming of gender concerns into the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). As highlighted in a number of recent reports and assessment workshops, gender is still not systematically and effectively mainstreamed into the UN reform process. As a result, the Inter-Agency Meeting on Women and Gender Equality (IAMWGE) recommended the establishment of a Task Force on Gender Mainstreaming in the CCA/UNDAF process to address the continuing need expressed by UN country teams for expertise and technical advice on how to systematically and effectively address gender issues both in the analysis and assessment of national development challenges and in strategic planning processes.

TERMS OF REFERENCE

The Task Force on Gender Mainstreaming in the CCA/UNDAF is chaired by UNIFEM and acts as a technical working group to bring together critical thinking on the CCA/UNDAF process from a gender perspective and to create a common understanding of gender mainstreaming. Its members include representatives from UNDGO, DAW, OSAGI, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and UNIFEM. In 2001, the Task Force was expanded to include a representative from the UN Statistical Division. You can contact the Task Manager of the Task Force, Zazie Schafer, at zazie.schafer@undp.org

The Task Force's main objective is the development of a common and coherent UN agency approach to gender mainstreaming in the CCA/UNDAF process. For more detailed information on the Task Force's terms of reference

SOME SELECTED ACTIVITIES OF THE TASK FORCE

Desk Review of Gender Mainstreaming in the CCA/UNDAF Process

The Task Force commissioned an external consultant to undertake a desk review of CCAs and UNDAFs to assess the extent to which gender perspectives were included in final documents as well as preparation processes. It will provide a comprehensive assessment of the status of gender mainstreaming in the selected CCA/UNDAF case studies and map out different approaches and gaps in mainstreaming gender into these UN reform tools (to be presented in a matrix and brief analytical paper). The review will also develop a set of guidelines for stakeholders working on gender mainstreaming in the CCA/UNDAF process to capture the qualitative aspects of the process. Completion of the review is expected for mid-May 2002.

Resource Map of Gender Expertise

The design and compilation of the Resource Map of Gender Expertise was initiated in 2000 by the now disbanded UNDG Inter-agency Sub-Group on Gender. In 2001 the Task Force on Gender in the CCA/UNDAF Process took on this task and the Resource Map was launched on the DevLink website (http://unifem.undg.org/). It provides UN Country Teams with easy access to UN system gender expertise, especially in the area of mainstreaming gender concerns into the CCA/UNDAF process.