Gender Mainstreaming Strategy and Action Plan 2020-2025.

The purpose of this Gender Mainstreaming Strategy (GMS) is to provide a framework for the operationalization and implementation of the Bank’s Gender Policy and gender equality priorities. The GMS seeks to translate stated policy goals and objectives into action and will serve as a comprehensive master plan for the achievement of these goals and objectives in a coordinated and complementary manner. The GMS establishes organizational priorities to support gender equality in alignment with the Institutional Gender Policy, and outlines delivery mechanisms, strategies, actions, roles and responsibilities for gender mainstreaming within the institutional policy framework. The GMS focuses on what needs to be done in the next five years to achieve the Bank’s gender equality goals.
Gender cuts across all activities and Departments within the Bank. For this reason, this strategy is a useful guide for all the Bank’s employees, partners and stakeholders who are involved with the Bank’s operations which are primarily focused on the following areas: Water and Sanitation (dams, water pipelines, water treatment plants, municipal water and sewer projects); Irrigation Infrastructure; Transport (roads, airports, railways, border posts); Energy (power plants, transmission and distribution grid networks, etc.); and Housing (on-site and off-site infrastructure, university and tertiary institutions accommodation, etc.).
The strategies proposed in this GMS are informed by the key findings of the Gender Audit in general and specifically by the recommendations put forward to address identified gender mainstreaming gaps in the Bank. The proposed strategies are therefore meant to operationalize the recommendations put forward by the Gender Audit and these recommendations have been framed as the strategic goals and objectives of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy. The Strategy has three goals, namely: Strengthened institutional capacity of IDBZ to mainstream gender for achievement of gender equality; Strengthened capacity of the Bank’s employees to mainstream gender; and Strengthened gender mainstreaming at project implementation level. Under each Strategic Goal, there are specific objectives that the Strategy aims to achieve in order to reach the stated goal and under each Objective, strategies are proposed on how best to achieve the objectives.