About the UNDP/Japan Women in Development Fund

About the Fund

Republic of Congo: "Promoting Equity between Women and Men: Phase II"

The UNDP/Japan Women in Development Fund (JWIDF) was established in 1995 as a follow up to the Beijing Platform for Action, in partnership with the Government of Japan.  It supports UNDP's efforts to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women in developing countries through catalytic and innovative project initiatives.

Initially, the areas of support focused on those covered by the Japan's initiative on Women in Development (WID) Initiative*, which empowers women at the grassroots level, in order for them to secure sustainable livelihoods and access to productive and social services such as credits and enterprise development, vocational training, education, and health services.

In 2000, the criteria of the UNDP/JWIDF were reviewed and revised. Factors that were taken into account include:

• UNDP transformed its approach from funding project-based initiatives to providing upstream policy support so developing countries could better respond to global and national development challenges.

• The UN adopted "gender mainstreaming" as its main strategy for promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women;

• Intensifying globalisation created new challenges for impoverished women around the world; and

• Heads of States launched the Millennium Declaration at the Millennium Summit held in New York in 2000. Their commitments were translated into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that outlined numerical and time-bound goals for poverty reduction and sustainable development.

In light of these changes, the UNDP/JWIDF shifted its focus from grassroots, project-based assistance to investments that create greater policy impact and help integrate gender into mainstream development policies and programmes. For more information, please read about the Fund's Focus Areas.

As of September 2006, UNDP/JWIDF supported 72 projects for the total amount of US$ 17.2 million. Out of the 72 projects are 51 country based – 16 in Asia and the Pacific (US$ 3.9 million), 14 in Africa (US$ 3.0 million), eight in Latin America and the Caribbean (US$ 1.8 million), eight in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (US$ 2.2 million), and five in Arab States (US$ 1.2 million).  In addition, three regional projects (US$ 0.7 million) and 18 global projects (US$ 4.4 million) have received support for a broad range of initiatives.

* The WID Initiative was replaced upon the launch of Gender and Development Initiative of the Government of Japan in March 2005.

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