The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women) organized a technical workshop to apply the recently developed gender-sensitive investment criteria, Women’s Economic Empowerment Index (WEEI).

The list of participants included UN staff, government officials, WEE experts and practitioners, and representatives from donors and multi-lateral organizations. The workshop updated relevant parties on the latest developments of the three-agency joint programme, Inclusive and Equitable Local Development (IELD), and next steps in the pilot countries, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Uganda.

IELD uses the “One UN” approach, which strategically leverages each agency’s niche, and comparative advantages in programming on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Women’s Economic Empowerment Index

The IELD technical team provided an overview and hands-on-training of the newly developed Women’s Economic Empowerment Index, which is a set of criteria and indicators that identify private sector businesses and infrastructure projects that are considered gender responsive. It is the first UN standard for evaluating a project pipeline through a gender lens, which can eventually become a public good for our partners and relevant stakeholders.

Gender-Responsive Local Economic Assessment Tool

Furthermore, UN Women led the presentation on the Gender-Responsive Local Economic Assessment Tool, the first of its kind in the UN system, which can bring significant data and evidence to support women’s economic empowerment agenda. It will be used to identify the comparative economic strengths and weaknesses of a locality through a gender perspective.

IELD Pipeline of Investable Projects

Lastly, an overview of the IELD Pipeline from the latest UN Kigoma Joint Programme Call for Proposal was shared by the Tanzania country team as well as how each project will be evaluated based on the LD practice pipeline development stages methodology.

WEEI Training and Application

The IELD technical team from HQ leads the discussion on how to practically apply the WEEI on the existing IELD pipeline with the aim of identifying gender-sensitive businesses and women-led enterprises that directly promote women’s economic empowerment.

Country Team Presentations

IELD pilot countries Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Uganda share their specific experiences with designing and implementing the programme.

For more information, please contact:

Ms. Aanchal Bhatia
Consultant
Inclusive and Equitable Local Development (IELD)
aanchal.bhatia@uncdf.org

The Inclusive and Equitable Local Development Programme (IELD) is a joint UNCDF, UNDP and UN Women initiative