Gender mainstreaming, employment and youth - ILO

The primary goal of the ILO is to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Gender equality is a key element in reaching this goal and is a cross-cutting policy driver for all ILO policy outcomes.

The ILO Policy on Gender Equality and Mainstreaming supports a two-pronged approach of gender mainstreaming: analyzing and addressing in all ILO initiatives the specific needs of both women and men, and targeted interventions to enable women and men to participate in, and benefit equally from, development efforts.

ILO works to mainstream gender into all ILO its work and in development cooperation projects. Mainstreaming gender is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated.

Specific interventions include:

• promote the ratification and implementation of the four key gender equality Conventions – Equal Remuneration Convention (No. 100), Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention (No. 111), Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention (No. 156) and Maternity Protection Convention (No. 183);
• take specific measures to promote women’s access to employment;
• work to extend gender-equitable social protection; and
• promote equitable representation of women and men in decision making positions, and works to ensure that gender equality is on the agenda in tripartite discussions.