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Women's rights
Implementing women's rights – tapping into potential
Throughout the world women play a key role in implementing change. Gender equality is therefore a precondition of development. Where the social conditions allow, women can develop their great potential – to the benefit of all. Germany promotes diverse measures to eliminate discrimination against women and girls through its development cooperation.
Internationally
At international level the German government advocates the improvement of women’s legal situation in particular. Germany is working hard to
- remove obstacles that prevent women participating equally in economic life;
- embed the human rights and gender approach more deeply in international development cooperation;
- take the needs of women into account more in the fight against HIV/AIDS;
- realise the sexual and reproductive self-determination rights of women and men in equal measure;
- ensure that the harmful traditional practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) soon becomes a thing of the past; and
- put an end to all forms of violence against women.
Locally
In the partner countries of German development cooperation, Germany aims to ensure among other things that
- existing laws on gender equality and violence against women are effectively implemented;
- the issue of gender equality is incorporated into national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs);
- women and girls are actively involved in political, economic and social processes; and
- women and men have equal access to land ownership, education, productive resources and financial services.
Furthermore, German development cooperation supports women’s networks and organisations. These networks and organisations have a special closeness to the population groups in question, and this closeness and the trust-based relationship they have with them mean that they can often implement projects very specifically and efficiently.
German financial contributions
Between 2007 and 2012, the German government provided 16.4 billion euros in bilateral development cooperation funding for projects that – regardless of their actual objective – have a positive impact on gender equality.
In addition, since then 902 million euros in funding has been committed to projects whose primary goal is gender equality. About 30 per cent of Germany’s entire Official Development Assistance (ODA) and 56 per cent of its bilateral cooperation has thus contributed directly or indirectly to promoting gender equality.
The German government committed a total of 61.75 million euros in bilateral official development assistance in the fiscal year 2016 to projects whose primary objective is the promotion of gender equality.
Priority areas
Details of some of the priority areas of involvement of German development cooperation in the field of gender equality can be found in the following sub-sections:
- Women and poverty alleviation
- Combating violence against women and girls
- Promoting women’s access to justice and jurisdiction, political participation and co-determination
- Promoting women in rural development, agriculture and food security
- Women in armed conflicts and peacekeeping
- Education for women and girls
- Promoting the employment and economic empowerment of women
- Promoting health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights
- Women, climate change, disaster risk management and sustainable development
More information
Information
See also
- International agreements on women's rights
- Issues: Poverty
- Issues: Good governance
- Issues: Education
- Issues: Health
- Issues: Peace
- Issues: Protecting the climate
- Issues: Business
- Issues: Rural development
External Links
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948 - external link, new window - Visit website
- Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (PDF 72 KB) - external link, new window - Visit website
Publications
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Development Policy Action Plan on Gender Equality 2016–2020new window, PDF 454 KB 01/2016 | pdf | 454 KB | 49 P.
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Road Map 2018 | Development Policy Action Plan on Gender Equality 2016–2020new window, PDF 880 KB, accessible 08/2018 | pdf | 880 KB | 64 P. | accessible
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Women’s Pathways to the Digital Sector: Stories of Opportunities and Challengesnew window, PDF 3.8 MB, accessible 02/2017 | pdf | 3.8 MB | 52 P. | accessible
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Women in Tech: Inspiration, no fairytalesnew window, PDF 8.6 MB, accessible 12/2018 | pdf | 8.6 MB | 72 P. | accessible
- Stopping violence against women: BMZ five-point-plannew window, PDF 167 KB 11/2017 | pdf | 167 KB | 3 P.