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| Overview of the GPE Programme |
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Content page: Conceptual framework - Origin - Areas of action - Target Participants - Institutional arrangements
Conceptual framework
The GPE Programme uses a 3-dimensional framework for understanding and addressing poverty. It focuses on the interactions between poverty, work and gender.
Work is central in people's lives and the development process. Through work, people can expand their choices to a better quality of life and find a dignified way out of poverty. Through work, wealth is created and shared.
Yet, poverty can also be traced to problems in the world of work - unequal access to employment opportunities, unjust treatment in the workplace, low earnings, poor working conditions, vulnerability to occupational hazards against health, powerlessness, and economic and social insecurity. Some of these patterns and trends are defined by gender-based relations and norms.
The gender dimensions of poverty go beyond quantitative indicators, whether that be relative shares of men and women in poor populations or their relative poverty levels. The gender dimensions concern norms, rules and institutions that allocate among individuals, differently and often unequally on the basis of their sex, entitlements to resources that are necessary to meet needs and secure a decent life. Gender-based inequalities differentiate the processes that lead women and men into poverty and out of it. Discrimination on grounds of race and ethnicity interact with gender to further curtail people's capabilities and their employment and poverty outcomes.
Because of gender-based constraints and disadvantages, women have fewer chances of an independent escape from poverty. Poor women will have greater difficulty in breaking out of poverty than poor men.
The elimination of gender-based inequalities and discrimination should therefore be an integral part of the poverty reduction agenda.
Origin
The International Labour Office, in collaboration with the International Training Centre in Turin, conceived the Capacity-Building Programme on Gender Equality, Employment Promotion and Poverty Eradication in 1996 in response to the Fourth World Conference on Women and the World Summit on Social Development (1995), and to the growing demand from constituents of the International Labour Organization (ILO) to address the persistence of women's vulnerability to poverty.
Areas of action
- Information base on the interfaces of employment, poverty and gender
- Advocacy, awareness-raising, training of trainers
- Social dialogue among social partners and other stakeholders, including representatives of populations living in poverty
- Practical application of concepts and analysis into policy, programme or institutional measures at national or local levels
Target Participants
- Policy makers, senior ministerial staff
- local governments and municipal authorities
- managers and implementers of anti-poverty, employment promotion and gender equality programmes
- workers' and employers' organisations
- other organisations of civil society
- academia and development practitioners
- regional and international development agencies.
Institutional arrangements
The ILO regional, sub-regional and country area offices of the ILO design and implement the GPE capacity-building activities, in partnership with ILO constituents and social partners, and with the technical assistance of the National Policy Group of the Policy Integration Department (INTEGRATION/NPG), the Gender Bureau and technical departments of the ILO and the International Training Centre of the ILO.
At ILO Headquarters, the focal point for the GPE Programme is the National Policy Group, Policy Integration Department.
At the ILO Field Offices, the focal points are the Gender Specialists.
The International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin, Italy provides inter-regional training courses on gender, poverty and employment.
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