Gender

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:

1. Promoting women’s rights and gender equality in Commonwealth countries through advocacy, policy advice, capacity building, and technical assistance.
2. Convening policy dialogue and consensus building through triennial meetings of Commonwealth Ministers responsible for Women’s Affairs, annual meetings of Commonwealth Women’s National Machineries and the Commonwealth Women’s Forum.
3. Leading and coordinating policies, systems and mechanisms for effective gender mainstreaming. 

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".

Commonwealth Women's Forum 2018 Report