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ADB Establishes Gender and Development Cooperation Fund

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (19 May 2003) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved the establishment of a Gender and Development Cooperation Fund to help carry out its gender and development policy and action plan.

The objective of the fund is to promote gender equality and women's empowerment in the Asia Pacific region.

The fund was initially proposed by Norway. The Governments of Canada, Denmark and Norway have made initial contributions totaling US$4.2 million fund. As a multidonor fund, it is open to contributions by other member countries that wish to support gender and development.

ADB and the governments of its developing member countries need to strengthen their capacity to address gender concerns and to plan, develop and implement programs and projects to narrow gender gaps in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

"Too often, women bear the burden of poverty, as they are systematically excluded from access to resources, essential services, and national and local decision-making," says Shireen Lateef, ADB Principal Social Development Specialist.

"Our focus on poverty reduction underscores mainstreaming gender, since it is a key factor in transforming growth into development and reducing poverty."

Two-thirds of the world's poor live in the Asia Pacific region, the majority of whom are women.

Literacy rates for women remain low, maternal mortality rates are high, and practices such as dowry deaths and female infanticide still occur in some countries in the region.

ADB adopted a policy on gender and development in 1998, followed by an action plan with departmental commitments to put it into practice.

A progress report shows that, since approval of the policy, ADB has significantly increased its gender activities. However, much work remains to be done.

ADB's gender and development action plan is committed to:

• Preparing gender strategies for ADB's country strategies and programs of developing member countries
• Increasing the number of loans with gender and development themes and with effective gender mainstreaming
• Boosting technical assistance and sector work on gender

ADB's gender activities already include regional technical assistance grants to address issues such as trafficking in women and girls in South Asia and strengthening of labor standards relating to children and women.

Additional grant resources will harness the gains made, extend and replicate some of the successful initiatives already tested and achieve better results.

These are critical in building capacity, spearheading initiatives and interventions and promoting awareness, partnerships and cooperation on gender issues.

More at adb.org/media

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