The 2020 Decade of Action emerges as the renewal of hope worldwide, the impulse for governments and peoples of the entire world to work together and create a sustainable future of peace, dignity and equal rights.

March is the month of the Sustainable Development Goal n° 5 – Gender Equality. The object is to attain gender equality and to empower all women and girls.

Moreover, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, March 8^th, is “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights”. The theme is aligned with a new multigenerational campaign of UN Women, Generation Equality, which marks the 25^th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Adopted in 1995 at the 4^th World Conference on Women, the Beijing Platform for Action is acknowledged as the most progressive road map towards the empowerment of the world’s women and girls.

To mark the Women’s Month, the 20^th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration (Beijing25) and the 20^th anniversary of Resolution 1325 of the UN Security Council, the UNDP Office reasserted its commitment to "go on being the primordial partner of women’s and girls’ empowerment in Guinea-Bissau".

UNDP’s contributions to the empowerment of Guinean women and gender equality in Guinea-Bissau (2019)

UNDP gave support to Civil Society Organizations for the law of parity to be approved, which foresees a female representation of 36% in the National Popular Assembly [Assembleia Nacional Popular] and in local governments.

Through the initiative + Women in partnership with the Women’s Political Platform [Plataforma Política das Mulheres], 99 candidates were trained in drawing up an electoral strategy for their candidatures, political communication and the use of media platforms for their campaign. The parliamentary elections brought about 14% of female representation in Parliament, upon which the newly formed government included 35% of women in decision making functions, with 50% of the senior posts (8 of 16 Ministries) being occupied by women.

UNDP and the National Electoral Commission, in collaboration with the Women’s Political Platform and UN Women, trained 120 women from several national women’s organizations in implementing de awareness campaigns for voting citizens, with the focus on the participation of women in the electoral process. This campaign contributes to an increase of 12% of registered female voters at the parliamentary and presidential elections, besides reaching parity as far as the presence of female staff at polling stations is concerned, which was of 56,46% at the first round of the presidential election.

The Centre for Access to Justice provided legal assistance and mediation services to 1.725 people, 30% of which were women, an increase of 35% compared to 2018. Furthermore a gender-sensitive strategy was devised to improve women’s access to centres of legal assistance.

UNDP, in partnership with the Bandim Healthcare Project [Projecto Saúde Bandim] and the Ministry of Public Health, performed an Investigative Action that analyzed gender balance among the Communitary Health Agents [Agentes Comunitários de Saúde] (ACS). On the other hand, the survey on the Malaria Matchbox concentrated upon gender and human rights barriers, which lead to the adoption and implementation of plans and legal strategies based on human rights.

The representation of gender was taken into consideration in the planning structures created in the regions of Cacheu (68% men and 32% women) and Gabu (65% men and 35% women). The gender analysis was performed and incorporated into the Sectoral Strategic Sustainable Development Plans [Planos Estratégico de Desenvolvimento Sustentável de Setor] (PEDSS) worked out for these two regions.

Significant progress was observed as far as the population using techniques and methods adapted to climate change is concerned, representing about 34.388 producers in the country, 25.431 of which are women.