Sri Lanka

UNDP Sri Lanka

has achieved the Gold Gender Quality Seal Certification!

UNDP has been supporting the government of Sri Lanka to reduce gender inequalities through curated interventions that recognize women’s crucial contributions in achieving development results. As a trusted partner, UNDP continues to mobilize and shape an ecosystem where women’s empowerment is embedded in every fiber of our support to the people of Sri Lanka.

"Despite the socio-economic difficulties arising from the COVID-19 crisis, UNDP Sri Lanka has kept up a precise focus on gender equality across all its programming and operations work. This process has taught us that when we focus on promoting gender equality with dedication, everyone benefits, not only women. "

- Malin Herwig, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Sri Lanka

Some key achievements include:

Advancing gender equality in national climate plans

Woking together with partners, UNDP contributed to promote gender-responsive natural resource management and ensured that gender equality commitments are at the forefront of Sri Lanka’s Nationally Determined Contributions.

Supporting women’s collective mobilization and voice

Amplifying women’s voices and agency is embedded within UNDP’s initiatives in Sri Lanka. Through its governance programme, UNDP was able to influence local processes to become more inclusive.

Increasing women’s access to business knowledge

UNDP-supported projects in Sri Lanka were very successful in delivering curated entrepreneurship training for female-headed households to enhance their business ventures, allowing 79% of service users to make improvements in business capital.

UNDP Sri Lanka Equal Partners campaign with the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs

UNDP Sri Lanka Advocating for women in leadership roles

UNDP Sri Lanka Business & Financial Training for women headed households

UNDP Sri Lanka Women led community agri interventions to allevoate poverty and conserve biodiversity

UNDP Sri Lanka Empowering women through capacity building and livelihood support in non traditional sectors

UNDP Sri Lanka Women led community businesses that promote social cohesion

Select good practices and innovation in advancing foundational elements of gender equality:

The Sri Lanka Country Office developed a gender-sensitive procurement guide with innovative practices and approaches, helping to increase women vendors’ business share in UNDP’s procurement spending.

In the area of communications, the Country Office has been creating visibility for important gender issues in Sri Lanka, while also ensuring an inclusion lens across its messaging, reports, articles, and events.

UNDP has made deliberate efforts to recruit and retain the only female driver in the UN system in Sri Lanka, with additional efforts being made to extending to the IT sector.

UNDP has worked with national and local government on gender issues, and has a long-standing relationship of trust and credibility, which is recognized by government counterparts in Sri Lanka.

UNDP has found ways to pivot and ensure relevance and responsiveness to the needs of everyone in the current situation in Sri Lanka. The programming team is agile and has been able to focus on emerging gender issues in the migration and taxation sectors, for instance.

"Sri Lanka has been hit by multiple crises – with economic crisis being the worst – despite this, UNDP has been able to implement projects with gender equality as the principal objective. In UNDP Sri Lanka, gender transformation and women’s empowerment it is everybody’s business."

-Sriyani Perera, Gender SPecialist, UNDP Sri Lanka