UNIFEM is member of INGAD, Interagency Gender and Development Group in Pakistan and had the role of chair the first semester of 2008. Comprising all the major donors working on gender issues, INGAD works to promote gender advocacy and interagency coordination in Pakistan and is a proactive resource on gender advocacy to influence right-based development.

The priority issue are the following:

· Engendering Millennium Development Goals in Pakistan context

· Poverty reduction and Economic Empowerment

· Gender Based Violence and Gender Justice

· Women’s Political Participation

· Strengthening Institutional Mechanisms

· Monitoring Systems

· Gender Equality and Aid Effectiveness

INGAD’s mission is to share information and research, coordinate on policy and programme issues, network with various stakeholders and support advocacy efforts.

Throughout the period of UNIFEM chair, INGAD has engaged in a strategic exercise on positioning itself more strongly as a key advocacy stakeholder on gender and development in the global and national context. In specific, efforts were put in place for initiating an internal discussion around gender equality and aid effectiveness and identify specific entry points in Pakistan and for INGAD specifically. The INGAD members adopted at the end of this initial analysis and strategic planning a road map to the end of the year where focus is given not only to awareness and capacity building but specific capacity development and identification of innovative strategies for INGAD and its members recognizing that gender equality needs to have a prominent space in the development debate as well as the emphasis has been on flexibility and pro-activeness in INGAD activities.

Since INGAD members agreed to work on one or more research to be focused on the theme of Women’s Economic Empowerment, a Research and Technical Expert (RTE) was hired after a thorough process of selection.

The members decided to engage in the global debate around gender equality and aid effectiveness which aims to

• Ensure that gender equality and women’s human rights are fully incorporated into national development processes and in cooperation programmes

• Implication for gender equality and development

In fact, Gender Equality and Aid Effectiveness were suggested as the overall ‘super goal’ for INGAD, which committed to a mapping of aid trends and modalities around gender equality and aid effectiveness with the aim to develop an analysis which would help identify specific entry points both in light of the upcoming High level Forum in Accra this year as well as medium long term strategies for INGAD in Pakistan