The UN-Habitat Strategic Plan 2014-2019 identifies four Cross-Cutting Issues to be mainstreamed: Climate Change, Gender Equality, Human Rights and Youth. The aim of mainstreaming these issues is to support country, regional and thematic offices, in order to ensure that all UN-Habitat work is targeting those furthest behind and promoting socially and environmentally sustainable cities. Mainstreaming does not require that each and every project directly aims to address and solve these issues, but rather that they are contributing to the larger long-term goals of UN-Habitat, the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The position for women in Ugandan society could be considered one of power - lessness: influenced by a range of factors including social norms and practices that prevent their full participation in the world of work (WoW), inequitable gender paygaps, and a variety of barriers in women’s professional and personal lives. In order to better understand how to change these social norms and facilitate women’s equitable inclusion in the WoW, UN-Habitat undertook a policy analysis at the municipal level in Uganda on existing national and municipal policies, laws and frameworks. 

The study also resonates with the gender-responsive nature of the recently adopt - ed New Urban Agenda (NUA), which has been adopted to guide urban centres. This is to occur, “by ensuring women’s full and effective participation and equal rights in all fields and in leadership at all levels of decision-making; by ensuring decent work and equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value, for all women; and by pre - venting and eliminating all forms of discrimination, violence and harassment against women and girls in private and public spaces”

"The Cross-cutting Progress Report 2016 covers UN-Habitat’s activities and achievements, during the course of 2016, in the way of its four cross-cutting issues: climate change, gender, human rights, and youth. The Report presents an overview of the mandate and structure of each of the cross-cutting issues, as well as presenting case studies of the Agency’s work on the ground relating to these issues.

The four cross-cutting issues were formalised in 2013 and have since then increasingly worked toward joint normative efforts. For example, the Cross-cutting Project Markers were released in September 2015 and are applied to projects at the Project Advisory Group (PAG) to assess responsiveness to these issues in projects. As of September 2016 all Cross-cutting Project Markers have been uniformly applied by the Programme Division."

In 2012, UN-Habitat established the Advisory Group on gender issues (AGGI) as an independent body to advise the Executive Director on all issues related to gender in the agency's work. One of the first requests of AGGI members was for a document informing the organisation's current gender work. This gender history is commissioned by UN-Habitat in response to AGGI's request. Many past and present staff members and partners of UN-Habitat have contributed through availing documents, giving interviews, writing text and making comments.