Gender Equity Cross Cutting Strategy.

The Gender Equity Cross Cutting Strategy is a cross-sectoral national strategy of Afghanistan that targets mainly women of the country. The Strategy is provided for the period of 2008-2013. Its main objective is gender equality, a condition where women and men fully enjoy their rights, equally contribute to and enjoy the benefits of development and neither is prevented from pursuing what is fair, good and necessary to live a full and satisfying life.
In the environmental sector, the Strategy prioritizes interventions that address environmental issues that most adversely affect the lives of women, such as indoor air pollution and lack of access to drinking water and sanitation facilities as well as availability and access to fuel. The sector will promote women’s leadership and participation in environmental programs and will collect sex-disaggregated statistics in this regard. They will be mobilized in the prevention and abatement of pollution, management of waste, and environmental education and awareness.
The Strategy notes that the Agriculture and Rural Development sector considers women as farmers in their own right and commits to ensure that women have access to community representation while supporting improvements in the legal framework for gender equality and the promotion of gender sensitive planning, budgeting, implementation and monitoring of agricultural policies, programs and projects. It will also provide women farmers with access to critical agricultural infrastructure as irrigation canals, storage, and value chain facilities. Backyard poultry production will be promoted through the formation of women’s groups, distribution of improved breeds, and training of women extension and marketing agents. Vegetable production, extensive sheep and goat production and the formation of producers’ associations focusing on wool processing, cashmere collection and processing, etc. will also be promoted. Women-led backyard poultry production will include distribution of women-led Fayoumi/Astralop breeds and formation of women producers’ associations, increase in the number of female extension agents, and establishment of links to cooperative marketing.
The Strategy also includes actions for improved disaster preparedness and response noting that by end-2010 an effective system of disaster preparedness and response will be in place.
All ministries will be responsible for driving forward the implementation of gender equity at the national and sub national levels. They will engage and build partnerships with NGOs, international community, non-State institutions, and civil society organizations. Through the Afghanistan National Development Strategy Cross Cutting Consultative Group on Capacity Building and Institutional Reform, a holistic capacity development strategy and program on gender mainstreaming will be developed, coordinated, implemented, monitored and evaluated in partnership with Ministry of Women’s Affairs to enable the ministries to acquire the needed capacity to implement this Strategy.