This Sourcebook was developed to provide readily available and usable gendersensitivematerials and resources to build local government capacity for sustainable, equitable and inclusive human settlements.

The belief that increased numbers of women holding decision-making positions is a sign of empowerment is reflected in the United Nations Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), which tracks the percentages of women in national parliaments, in other legislatures, and as senior officials and managers among professional and technical workers. There is a growing demand for an increasing presence of women in political decision-making. It is argued that women need to be ‘empowered’ in the realm of political decision-making so as to facilitate their ‘real’ empowerment.

This report is a call to action. To realize the Sustainable Development Agenda, there is a pressing need to step up actions to close gender gaps and ensure the full economic empowerment of women. After six months of fact finding, sharing best practices and consulting around the world, the Panel presents its findings about proven and promising actions to address gender gaps and accelerate progress. The High-Level Panel hopes that this report and its ongoing actions and commitments will serve as a call to action to men and women around the world to join together in a global campaign to achieve gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. Empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps at work are central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Yet too many gaps persist. How to accelerate progress? Through concrete actions by individuals, businesses, governments, worker and employer organizations, civil society, and multilateral institutions to drive change by addressing systemic constraints. Expanding women’s economic opportunities is central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. More than two decades after the landmark 1995 United Nations (UN) Conference on Women in Beijing and with the unprecedented consensus on the 2030 Agenda, the global commitment to gender equality has never been stronger. For the first time in history, governments have set a concrete deadline for the elimination of gender inequality—the year 2030. And the potential gains for basic human rights, for human development and for economic growth have never been larger.

This resource guide provides practical guidance for designing, implementing and evaluating decentralisation reforms and local government practices to ensure they are as effective as possible. It also synthesises and presents current debates on the impact of decentralisation and local government on poverty reduction, service delivery and conflict as well as providing links to cutting-edge research and recent case studies.

Development Aims and Impacts: Women elected to local government can be effective as members of council committees (including committees with responsibilities such as construction tendering) as well as in reaching out to women citizens, if given skills training and support. Mechanisms, such as citizen committees through which women can express their views and priorities for local infrastructure and services, can also be useful tools to increase local government responsiveness to the needs of women, i.e., to improve governance. It is not enough for towns or other actors to identify objectives and activities to benefit women—they also need to set aside the budgets to implement them, which ADB can encourage and support (e.g., through performance criteria). ADB Processes and Management Tools: Performance criteria on women’s participation are a powerful tool when they are developed as part of a set of performance criteria that all need to be met for further participation in the investment component of the project—this approach promotes practical action and also reinforces the legitimacy of issues of women’s participation in governance and in project benefit.