Empowering women

Empowering women and girls and achieving gender equality are crucial to creating inclusive, open and prosperous societies. Gender inequalities, however, persist in many countries so it is important that we find new ways of addressing this issue. We contribute to this agenda by creating opportunities for dialogue to influence policies that benefit women and girls; work with partners to promote access and opportunity for women and girls and build the skills and confidence of women and girls to achieve their potential and have more influence over decisions that affect their lives.

There has been considerable progress in recent decades in getting countries to acknowledge the importance of empowering women and girls, in order to promote greater equality in their relationships with men and boys, within their families and in society. While the international community recognises the important contribution gender equality can make to poverty reduction and inclusive growth, it also recognises that equality must be, above all, a matter of basic social justice.