Rome, 16-17 May 2007 Background and rationale: Gender equality and women’s empowerment have been gaining increasing importance for IFAD – both as objectives and as instruments for poverty reduction. IFAD’s commitment is visible in its operations, where three main dimensions are considered: economic empowerment by enhancing women’s access to and control over productive resources; strengthening their participation in public decision-making processes; and enhancing rural people’s well-being by improving their access to basic rural infrastructure and services.IFAD’s Gender Plan of Action 2003-2006: “Mainstreaming a gender perspective in IFAD’s operations” was conceived as an instrument for operationalizing the principles and objectives of the Strategic Framework for IFAD 2002-2006. Regional gender strategies were also prepared and identified gender as a cross-cutting theme for operations. For the last decade, IFAD has been implementing regional and country-specific grant-funded support programmes for gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment in its operations.These have been financed with IFAD resources and Supplementary Funds from Germany, Italy, Japan and Norway. After several years of implementation and requests from different stakeholders, a self-evaluation process was launched to take stock of the various experiences gathered. Simultaneously, in 2005, the mid-term review of IFAD’s Gender Plan of Action 2003-2006 was undertaken to measure progress made. The conclusions of these review exercises provide a backdrop for assessing IFAD’s work in terms of gender mainstreaming and for highlighting the most salient lessons arising from implementation. A decision on the way forward is now pressing, in the context of the new IFAD Strategic Framework 2007-2010 and other institutional change processes currently under way. Objective: The workshop will identify strategies for achieving greater effectiveness and impact of IFAD operations in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly MDG1 (poverty eradication) and MDG3 (gender equality), and for reinforcing the gender dimension in IFAD’s Strategic Framework 2007-2010 and the commitment to its implementation. This will be facilitated by discussing lessons learned, situating IFAD’s experience of gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment within the broader global context and identifying emerging issues. Participants: Staff from all IFAD divisions, including Senior Management, the regional gender focal points, country programme managers and consultants will participate. Also invited are staff from IFAD-supported projects (both loan- and grant-financed) with gender expertise and responsibilities, including project directors, gender focal points, supervisors from cooperating institutions and regional consultants.
Working language: English (interpretation services into Spanish and French will be available). Working methods: Workshop discussions will be carried out through:
Wednesday, 16 May 2007 Topic 1: Looking back – Findings of review and self-evaluation processes Topic 2: Looking beyond – Gender Mainstreaming in the international context Thursday, 17 May 2007 Topic 3: Looking forward – Innovative ways to increase women’s economic empowerment, role in decision-making and well-being Experiences from the field Practical arrangements: The workshop is organized by IFAD’s Technical Advisory Division in collaboration with regional gender focal points and IFAD’s Thematic Group on Gender. The workshop will be held on 16-17 May 2007 at Casa San Bernardo, Via Laurentina, 289 – 00142 Rome (telephone: +39 06 5407651 and fax: +39 06 5407654). Funding: IFAD, and the Governments of Italy, Japan and Norway
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