Ramallah, 18 June 2019 – Her Excellency the Minister of Women’s Affairs, Dr. Amal Hamad, has handed the government decree on the establishment of the Gender Policy Institute (GPI) as a national autonomous entity to UNESCO’s Officer-in-Charge, Mr. Junaid Sorosh-Wali.
UNESCO supports and promotes Gender Equality in Palestine and the alignment of national legislation to international treaties. Through the establishment of this first Gender Policy Institute in Palestine the GPI takes forward and builds on UNESCO’s ten-year programme, the Palestinian Women’s Research and Documentation Center (PWRDC), funded by the Government of Norway with a vision for the GPI to become a national entity/institution. The GPI has been developed into a gender-related policy think tank after a broad consultation among key stake-holders and relevant academic, governmental and non-governmental institutions working in the field of gender equality. UNESCO in close colaboration with MoW has worked towards the establishment of the legal status of GPI to become an autonomous national Palestinian Institute similar to the legal identity granted for The Palestinian National Institute of Public Health (PNIHP). This was made possible through a jointly prepared file by MoWA and UNESCO by H.E. Dr. Amal Hamad, Minister of Women’s Affairs to the Cabinet of Ministers on 10 June 2019, which will grant GPI with the necessary legal status to become the first Gender Policy focused Institute established through a government decree in Palestine and in the whole Arab region. Subsequently, UNESCO, in cooperation with MoWA, is currently taking the lead towards the transition of GPI into a non-partisan autonomous entity that conducts quantitative and qualitative analysis of public policies from a gendered perspective.
The GPI will research, analyze and share evidence-based policy products with target audiences, and help shape the policy debate by engaging and collaborating with policy makers, practitioners and academics. The focus will be on building accountability for gender equality through effective policymaking and its implementation in partnership with the Palestinian Authority’s institutions and in particular the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA). The GPI would propose in partnership with PA ministries, analyze and share policy ideas with target audiences as well as help shape the policy debate by connecting CSOs, academic and governing authorities in a cohesive and collaborative manner.
In December 2017, UNESCO/Gender Policy Institute (GPI) in partnership MoWA and in order to support the whole of government in their planning, review and monitoring of gender equality and women’s empowerment policies, began the process of mapping of gender and women’s empowerment policies endorsed by the Palestinian Government between 2011 – 2017. This phase, of over a one year process (mapping, analysis and plan of delivery), aimed to collect, document and review gender equality policies and policy interventions and their level of implementation (full, partial, none) – creating for the first time, a baseline that GPI, the government, civil society organizations and any interested entity , can use in forthcoming planning. Findings from the UNESCO/GPI ‘Bridging Gender Gaps in Palestine: Qualitative Analysis of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policies, 2011-2017’ , were launched in December 2018.
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For more information on this event, please contact: Majd Beltaji, Public Information Officer of the UNESCO Ramallah Office, at m.beltaji@unesco.org