 | Women in Kibera. The largest slum in East Africa. |
In 1996, 171 member states gave their support to the Habitat Agenda, one of the main documents defining UN-HABITAT’s mandate. The Habitat Agenda stated seven commitments, one of which is to gender equality.
Urbanization is increasingly pervasive. According to UN-HABITAT’s State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011 report, by 2030, all developing regions, including Asia and Africa, will have more people living in urban than rural areas.
UN-HABITAT promotes gender equality and the empowerment of women as a vital component of sustainable urbanization. The vision behind this involves ensuring inequalities in cities are addressed, people can live safe, healthy, productive lives, towns and cities are environmentally sustainable, and there is adequate shelter for all.
In 2010, UN-HABITAT estimated that nearly one in three urban dwellers in developing regions lives in a slum. The challenges of slum life often vary depending on gender, and there is a particular need to ensure that the specific needs of women and girls are adequately met in policies and programmes on urban development and housing, making up for long-standing areas of discrimination or disadvantage.
These ideas may be easy to accept in principle, but many policy makers, urban planners and development practitioners struggle with inadequate knowledge, training and resources to help ensure that gender perspectives are fully integrated into all aspects of their work.
Working with a diverse range of partners—from academic institutions to grassroots women’s organizations—UN-HABITAT is increasing gender advocacy, training and capacity-building, helping policy makers and development practitioners to work more effectively to address gender inequalities in the context of rapid urbanization in developing countries.
UN-HABITAT also disseminates research and information on practical approaches to develop gender-inclusive cities, recognizing that the best efforts to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development are those that simultaneously tackle gender inequalities and engage the full talents and capabilities of women and men equally. This helps to facilitate development more quickly, efficiently and more cost effectively.
Within this approach, UN-HABITAT promotes the involvement of men and boys in supporting gender equality initiatives, including campaigning to end violence against women and the development of safer, more inclusive cities.
Great strides can be made towards the Millennium Development Goals by helping women to reach parity with men—in areas such as income, employment, ability to participate in decision-making, education, freedom from gender-based violence, and access to land and housing.
UN-HABITAT has had a Gender Equality Programme since 1991 and has made considerable gains promoting gender equality and implementing programmes that bring real benefits to the lives of urban women, but there is still much work to do.
The Gender Equality Action Plan guides programmes and activities up to 2013 and ensures a focused and strategic approach to bringing about measurable improvements for gender equality and sustainable development in towns and cities.
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Key United Nations agreements and resolutions on gender equality and human settlements
What is gender mainstreaming?