This past 3-7 April in Geneva, the UN Women Training Centre delivered the face-to-face portion of a Gender Mainstreaming training to 22 participants after completing the online session that ran from 6-31 March. The training seeked to strengthen capacity of UN System, development organizations, governments and other stakeholders to mainstream gender in public policies, programmes and projects and institutions and organizations.

In July 1997 United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) defined the concept of gender mainstreaming as "the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in any area and at all levels. It is a strategy for making the concerns and experiences of women as well as of men an integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres, so that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal of mainstreaming is to achieve gender equality.

The content of this Gender Mainstreaming course was divided into several modules covering different topics:

• Module 1: Basic concepts on gender mainstreaming
  
• Module 2: Gender mainstreaming in Programmes and Projects Cycle
  
• Module 3: Gender Mainstreaming in Public Policies
  
• Module 4: Gender Mainstreaming in Institutions
  

This course is currently offered by the Training Centre on a yearly basis but can be customized to fit the needs of participants in any context. To request information about next dates or how to request a customized training you can write to mainstreaming.tc@unwomen.org.