| dc.description.abstract | Gender equality and women’s empowerment are at the front and center of the Asian
Development Bank’s (ADB) development agenda for Asia and the Pacific. ADB
recognizes that harnessing the talents, human capital, and economic potential of
women is essential for better development outcomes, such as inclusive growth, faster poverty
reduction, and accelerated progress toward attainment of the Millennium Development
Goals. Hence, promoting gender equity is embedded in ADB’s corporate strategy Strategy
2020, while its Policy on Gender and Development provides the overall guiding framework.
Gender mainstreaming is a key strategy for ensuring gender equality issues are integrated in
all ADB operations—across all sectors and regions.
This tool kit on gender and public sector management (PSM) is designed to guide staff and
users in identifying and addressing gender issues in PSM programs and projects. It will help
users identify and investigate gender issues in the relevant PSM subsectors and build practical
design elements into proposed PSM programs and projects.
Effective public institutions are essential to the achievement of the development goals for
poverty reduction, inclusive growth, and gender equality. Public institutions and processes,
such as planning, budgeting, and administration, are often considered gender-neutral. In
reality, however, any public decision-making process is likely to have different impacts on
different social and economic groups. Incorporating a “gender lens” in PSM will ensure that
public institutions promote gender equality and do not inadvertently reinforce gender biases
and disparities.
Public institutions have played a critical role in advancing gender equality and women’s
empowerment through constitutional guarantees and laws on gender equality; national
gender policies and action plans; establishing ministries of women; and setting quotas or
reservations for women in parliaments, local government decision-making bodies, and public
agencies. However, gender disparities persist and public policy reforms are still needed to
tackle gender inequalities; ensure women’s and men’s equal access to basic services, labor
markets, resources, and assets; and to promote equal voice in decision making.
The tool kit series is the product of collaboration between the Gender Equity Community of
Practice (CoP) and the respective sector CoPs. It is hoped that it will substantially contribute
to improve the design of gender-inclusive PSM programs and projects and, subsequently,
deliver better gender equality outcomes. | en_US |
