Working with international partners

In the EU
At the UN
World Bank
OECD
The Commonwealth

More than half the UKs budget for development assistance is spent through the European Union, the United Nations and other multilateral partners. We encourage our international partners to include gender concerns in all their work.

In the EU

Strengthening the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action was a priority for the UK Presidency of the European Union in the first half of 1998

· An updated spending regulation has been approved for incorporating gender issues in European Commission development programmes

· The EU Development Council has renewed its commitment to gender equality and is strengthening efforts to implement the I995 Gender Resolution

· We helped negotiate the mandate for the next round of the Lomé Convention, which places much stronger emphasis than in the past on gender and poverty, and identifies the pursuit of gender equality as one of its guiding principles

At the UN

We have increased financial support to the UN Development Fund for Women - UNIFEM.

· We are supporting the International Labour Organisation's programme "More and Better Jobs for Women" and funding the preparatory phase of an ILO project for eliminating trafficking in children in Asia.

· We are helping the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop policy, guidelines, and training programmes for health workers to tackle practices prejudicial to the health of young girls, including female genital mutilation

· We work closely with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in many developing countries to promote women's equality and human and social development

· The UK plays an active role in key UN negotiations on gender equality, in the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Commission, and in following up on the resolutions of global conferences The Commission on the Status of Women is a particularly important forum

· We liaise closely with other UN agencies, including UNDP, UNICEF, and United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), and have provided team members for UN field missions

· A senior DFID adviser with gender expertise has been posted to the UK Mission to the UN at New York

World Bank

Social and gender issues have been high on the agenda in our dialogue with the World Bank for many years and we are developing a similar relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

· We have contributed to the continuing work in the Poverty and Social Policy Group of the Special Programme of Assistance to Africa and made a substantial contribution to the 1998 Poverty Status Report for Africa, on the theme of Gender and Poverty

OECD

· The UK plays a full role in the work of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is one of the main forums for donor coordination We have made a major contribution to the development of new guidelines for donors on gender equality and women's empowerment

The Commonwealth

· We are strengthening our links with the Commonwealth Secretariat, which is doing innovative work to develop women's budgets and gender management systems to improve public services