Gender and Development Policy

Gender and Development Policy is a government tool geared towards addressing the challenges of gender inequities and inequalities, poverty, increased spread of HIV/AIDS, retrenchment and unemployment by adopting a rights-based approach to development and it draws its mandate from Chapter II of the Constitution of Lesotho that entitles every citizen to fundamental human rights and freedom. The policy is based on the realization of human rights of all, women and men alike, holding principles of equal participation in development, non-discrimination and the empowerment of the marginalized women and men, girls and boys.

The government is committed to implementing the issues of equal access to, and control over, property and financial assets that are crucial components of women’s and men’s economic development and freedom. The policy is aware that gender disparities in access to, and control over, productive resources such as land, finance, technology and information handicap women’s ability more than men to participate in, and benefit from, the opportunities made available by economic development.

The government further realizes that household poverty lies more heavily on women than on men, as they are pillars of all types of households. This is also compounded by the HIV/AIDS pandemic whose care-giving lies solely in the hands of women surviving on woefully inadequate resources completely expended to care-giving. In order to overcome all these, we need to join hands in mainstreaming gender concerns.

Publisher: Government of Lesotho
Year of Publication: 2003