Gender and the Millenium Development Goals

Following the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000, 189 governments signed up to adopt eight goals which were seen as crucial to improve the lives of people around the world. To remind governments about their commitment, Oxfam joined other organisations around the world in a campaign called the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. Oxfam is also committed to ensuring that governments address gender equality issues in their work on all MDGs as a real improvement in people's lives cannot be achieved without women's empowerment. This issue of Links gathers case studies from Oxfam's programme work that show how the needs of women and girls have been addressed when working in the areas covered by the MDGs. Examples include providing women with bicycles, an important economic resource, in Cambodia; creating safer schools for girls in Mozambique; helping women to understand and monitor their own government's progress towards the MDGs in Chile.