It cannot be assumed that women and men benefit in the same way from initiatives in the land sector. Depending on the political, economic and cultural context, it is often women, and particularly poor women, who face significant barriers in obtaining land.

The Gender Evaluation Criteria has been developed as a practical tool to systematically measure the impact of land tools and interventions on women and men, so that one has concrete evidence on their gender dimensions.

This training course on "Designing and evaluating land tools with a gender perspective" has been developed as a complementary package to the Gender Evaluation Criteria, in order to build capacity around how to apply the criteria in practice. It has been designed specifically to enable land professionals to independently use the criteria in their work.

If policies to improve and enhance places are to address gender inequality, they must also take into account the issues and needs of both women and men. The policy implications are clear. Gender-sensitive urban planning starts with the needs of people in communities. The design of places and spaces needs to reflect the socio-cultural needs of women as well as men, girls as well as boys. Existing policies and programmes need to be scrutinized to see how they can be adapted to become more gender aware and bring about genuine gender equality.

There are two main standpoints that propagate the benefits of urbanisation. One is that cities are associated with opportunities for wealth generation. Concomitant to this is the idea that urban women supposedly enjoy greater social, economic, political opportunities and freedoms than their rural counterparts. However, the notable gender gaps in labour and employment, decent work, pay, tenure rights, access to and accumulation of assets, personal security and safety and representation in formal structures of urban governance show that women are often the last to benefit from the prosperity of cities. The State of Women in Cities 2012/2013 Report focuses on Gender and the Prosperity of Cities.

The Report examines the gender dimensions of the defining characteristics of a prosperous city- productivity, infrastructure development, quality of life, equity and social inclusion and environmental sustainability. It provides a conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between gender and prosperity and also reviews policies and institutional frameworks relevant for mainstreaming gender concerns in cities.

This impact assessment identifies how the water and sanitation initiatives implemented under the Water Sanitation and Infrastructure Branch of UN-HABITAT, have strategically mainstreamed gender aspects in its various initiatives and to identify achievements and impact, challenges, lessons learned and provide recommendations.This gender thematic study is one out three impact studies supported by the WSTF. The other two are Kenya and Nepal Country Impact Assessments. Together these three constitute the first in a series, intended to assist the WSIB in its future plans for regular assessments of its WATSAN initiatives during the coming five years. The study has looked at global, regional and country activities. The country programmes reviewed are implemented in Ethiopia, Ghana,Kenya and Nigeria in Africa; India,LaoPDR, Nepal and Vietnam in Asia and Nicaragua in the Latin America and Caribbean region

The objectives of the evaluation are to assess UN-HABITAT's efforts in mainstreaming gender across its programmes and policies, and the appropriateness of its institutional arrangements and strategic partnerships for the promotion of gender equality in human settlements.

In addition to the accountability objective, the purpose of the evaluation is to generate lessons to inform decisions about how institutional arrangements for gender mainstreaming and related strategic partnerships can be improved.The following Summary sets out the findings of the Evaluation with regard to the achievements and challenges of gender mainstreaming in UN-HABITAT, before presenting a summary of recommendations and next steps.

Local governments are increasingly realizing the importance and benefits of addressing gender equality and equity in their decision making, policies, programmes and services. Many are rising to the challenge.

This source book is intended to help improve understanding of the problems involved. It is designed as a companion to other UN-HABITAT training tools, providing local government trainers with the background and tested training methods they need to strengthen the gender dimension in their day-to-day training activities. The source book may also be used as a stand-alone tool, introducing local government policy-making and project implementation.

Good local governance cannot exist without giving due attention to gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN-HABITAT has therefore made great efforts to mainstream gender both internally and in its work with partners. The Training and Capacity Building Branch has recently published a number of training tools which aim to increase the capacity of local governments in such areas as local governance, management, local economic development and financial management.

A strong gender dimension has been incorporated into these tools and ongoing training activities to further support UN-Habitat’s gender policy. Despite these efforts, many training institutes are inadequately equipped to provide training on gender issues in local government and in fully integrating the gender dimension in their day-to-day courses. This tool, ‘Gender Equality and Equity: A Sourcebook for Local Government Training’, is designed to assist training institutions in mainstreaming gender concerns in local government capacity building activities and in human settlements training activities conducted by Habitat Agenda partners.

There is no one best way to set up and manage a town-level multi-stakeholder forum. The composition of the multi-stakeholder forum and issues to be addressed will differ from one town to another. This Step-by-Step Guide has been developed with the understanding that one-size-does-not-fit-all. The users of the Guide are, therefore, encouraged to be flexible in developing multi-stakeholder partnerships in line with their local needs and resources.

A substantial part of the Guide is based on UN-HABITAT’s own learning and experiences gained in the first phase of the Lake Victoria Region Water and Sanitation Initiative. Current thinking on multi-stakeholder partnerships and the experiences and practices of other development partners are also used to illustrate some points.