Pakistan with ranks 132 of 134 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2009, which indicates huge gender disparities in the country and the need to design effective measures to reduce these and promote gender equality.

ILO has partnered at the national level with 14 other UN agencies in this joint project on “Towards Gender Parity in Pakistan”. The project is funded by the Spanish MDG Fund.

The goal of the project is provision of equal employment opportunities and working conditions for women and men in Pakistan. The project outcome envisages that key institutions promote gender-responsive work practices in a sustainable manner.

The project’s three-pronged strategy comprises:

• capacity enhancement of key institutions with an active role in mainstreaming gender in the employment sector;
• integrating gender-responsive approaches in institutional systems and activities and programmes, and;
• establishing pilot programs with implementing partners including planning and sex-disaggregated resource allocation, providing policy and operational support for informal economy and home-based workers, operationalizing a policy on sexual harassment at the workplace, and mainstreaming ILO Conventions related to gender equality and decent work.