Asian Development Bank Publications Unit External Relatio

Published purpose

This partnership with the Asian Development Bank and the Government of Pakistan supports a unique opportunity to mainstream gender equality in the day-to-day operations of governance in Pakistan. The project provides a combination of expertise and strategic activities to assist the Government of Pakistan with implementing a series of major gender reforms to governance structures and processes. The Gender Reform Action Plans take the form of one national and four provincial Gender Reform Action Plans (GRAPs). The GRAPs not only propose a series of reforms, but also present budgets, financing plans, implementation plans, and monitoring plans for executing the GRAPs. The GRAPS focus on four areas to promote greater mainstreaming in Pakistani governments: (1) increasing women's political participation; (2) institutional restructuring, especially of Ministries and Departments of Women's Development, but including other ministries as well; (3) policy and fiscal reforms (tools and mechanisms), beginning with gender mainstreaming in budget and planning functions; and (4) capacity development in gender equality for government stakeholders.