In the area- of Poverty Alleviation and the Promotion of MDGs, UNDP has commissioned the Center for Women’s Research (CENWOR) to study the gender dimensions of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the findings of which have been published. Conscious effort has also been taken to ensure that gender concerns are adequately mainstreamed into all activities aimed at localizing the MDGs.

In the coming year, UNDP will play the leading role in implementing the UN Joint Programme for Support to the Multi-sectoral National Plan of Action for the Social Development of the Plantation Community (under UNDAF 2008-2012), which among several priority areas look at enhancing the living conditions and socio-economic well-being of female workers in the estate sector.

In the area of Governance, UNDP Sri Lanka has supported women’s representation and participation in political processes both at the national and local levels.  UNDP played a significant role in setting up a Women’s Parliamentary Caucus in 2006, which resulted in a submission to the Electoral Reforms Committee in Parliament, calling for the introduction of a quota system. Under the new Country Programme 2008-2012, UNDP will continue to support advocacy for greater female political participation at the national level and to empower political participation at the local level by providing training in leadership and negotiation skills.

As part of its equal access to justice initiative, UNDP provides a host of legal services to vulnerable communities and especially to female beneficiaries. UNDP will partner with the Government in 2008 to carryout a nationwide baseline survey of the access to justice sector for vulnerable groups. This survey will pay specific attention to the challenges facing vulnerable women, including migrant workers, victims of gender based violence, female-heads of households etc, and will inform UNDP’s strategy of support to the equal access to justice issue in the coming years.

Under Peace and Recovery, various efforts are made to integrate gender into all disaster and conflict recovery interventions. Under the Transition Programme  - UNDP’s flagship project for delivering socio-economic recovery and development support to the North and East -  gender concerns are addressed throughout the life-span of project interventions. Project strategies are developed on gender disaggregated data so that they best reflect the needs of men and women in the community. Also, women play an active role in the planning, implementation and monitoring of livelihood sub-projects and are part of the community labor used in the housing and infrastructure rehabilitation projects. The Programme also undertakes specific livelihood projects aimed to strengthening the socio-economic status of women in the community. In order to ensure that gender is mainstreamed in the field- level project planning and implementation, gender checklist has been prepared and has being used and gender mainstreaming training for staff has been held in the field offices.

Under Tsunami Recovery Programme, increased attempt was made to reach out to women by developing direct target interventions, increasing gender awareness and building capacities for gender sensitive planning and implementation of UNDP staff, implementing partners and service providers. Indicators for gender inclusiveness were developed for the results framework of each project. A toolkit on Cross-Cutting Issues was published as a product of lessons learned from Tsunami Recovery Programme, which includes Monitoring for Gender Sensitivity and Inclusion and Gender Analysis Checklist for Crisis Prevention and Recovery.

The new programme phase has also designed a systematic gender training component for staff and stakeholders which is already underway.

In the area of Disaster Risk Management (DRM), the programme cluster worked in close collaboration with the United Nations Volunteer (UNV) Programme to ensure the inclusion and representation of women through advocacy and consultation in its tsunami assistance programmes, particularly on the issue of gender-based violence in post-disaster situations. The interventions have also integrated gender issues into its work by conducting Training of Trainers programmes on Gender Mainstreaming in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), by undertaking a case study research on the importance of women in disaster risk management and by reflecting on gender concerns in disaster situations in its media advocacy work.

In the area of Environment, greater involvement of women in community environment programme and community water initiatives has been supported through Global Environment Facility (GEF) small grant scheme, making sure that gender concerns are addressed and implemented/monitored in the grant activities and women’s groups are eligible to access the grant. On the basis of the past effort, women’s empowerment will continue to be addressed in the DRM and environment work under the new Country Programme.

Further, jointly with other UN agencies, UNDP will play a significant role in implementing a planned UN Joint Programme to strengthen strategic ad integrated approaches to reduce Gender Based Violence further to the recent adoption of a National Plan for the Implementation of the Domestic Violence Act