Gender shapes and impacts the experiences of all individuals throughout all stages of societal development. It is only through gender-responsive approaches to governance, guided by a rights-based perspective, that policies and practices can recognize and address the specific needs, challenges and vulnerabilities of all individuals, particularly those of women, girls and LGBTQI+ groups. One of the cross-cutting and interdependent guiding principles of a number of global policy frameworks is gender-responsiveness. In particular, gender-based governance frameworks focus on mainstreaming a gender perspective in policy development and promoting gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Despite these developments, governments around the world do not possess the same level of capacity to realize the objectives of governance in a gender-responsive manner and to translate these ideas into reality on the ground.

This executive short course is designed to build capacity among practitioners on understanding and responding to contemporary gendered realities, and to provide resources and training on formulating, managing and evaluating gender-responsive governance. The course is aimed at participants who currently hold, or aspire to hold, leadership positions in all types of professional organizations.