We work to advance gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment in all social, economic and political spheres.
We provide technical assistance to member countries to support skills training and capacity building initiatives, monitoring and evaluation and high level advocacy, research and knowledge generation and lead the way for building consensus on key global priorities for gender equality for the Commonwealth.
Our work centers on key aspects of human development towards the achievement of the Commonwealth’s priorities on gender equality: (i) women in leadership; (ii) women’s economic empowerment; (iii) ending violence against women and girls; and (iv) gender and climate change; the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, and global, regional and national commitments on gender equality and overall empowerment of women.
There are three inter-linked functions to our gender work:
Commonwealth Women's Forum CHOGM 2018
The Commonwealth Women's Forum (CWF) is held at Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGM), with the first having taken place at Malta. The theme for the 2018 CWF was "An empowered future for women and girls".
Dozens of discriminatory gender laws should be repealed or revised in The Gambia to guarantee equal rights for women and girls within the legal framework.
The Commonwealth Secretariat and NO MORE Foundation have today launched a new campaign designed to help tackle the immediate crisis of the rapid increase in domestic and sexual violence due to the impacts of COVID-19
As economies, institutions and social welfare sectors continue to buckle under the strain of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic crisis, there is a dangerous escalation in the risk to the millions of people caught in the clutches of domestic and gender-based violence.
Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Dr Arjoon Suddhoo has said more must be done to address the fact that women account for two-thirds of the world’s illiterate population.
The Commonwealth has partnered-up with the Malawi Centre for Multi-Party Democracy (CMD-M) for a workshop designed to advance women’s political party leadership, strategy, advocacy and engagement.
Malawian women in politics have been taking stock of their success in the May elections and brainstorming how to gain an even greater say in the running of their country.