Gender Guidelines for Mine Action Programmes

The United Nations (UN) has endorsed the strategies of gender mainstreaming and gender balance to achieve the objective of gender equality. The UN Gender Guidelines for Mine Action Programmes are intended to help policymakers and programme personnel incorporate gender considerations into all relevant mine action initiatives and operations. The guidelines in this document build on and are an update to those formulated and endorsed by the IACG-MA in 2005. In addition, they reflect a broad consultative process, during which UN programme and Headquarters’ staff, as well as a large number of UN partners, including representatives of national mine action authorities, provided valuable input on lessons learned and examples of best practices, as well as recommendations for improvements to the guidelines. The revised guidelines provide practical examples of gender mainstreaming challenges and successes from programmes across mine-affected countries, to facilitate lessons and knowledge sharing and to ensure the guidelines are applicable to the field context. All of these contributions informed the revised guidelines, making them more operational. It is hoped that these revised guidelines will be a useful tool for the continued mainstreaming of gender in all pillars of mine action and at all stages of the programme process.