Findings from the 2018 update of the Regional Gender Stocktaking Exercise and the annual review of the implementation of the Regional Gender Strategy highlight that capacities and awareness need to be further strengthened, especially at country level. Since the last training held in 2015, many Gender Focal Points and FAO Representatives have also changed. Many COs are confronted with weak gender capacity of staff and partners, including government counterparts. Compounded with lack of data and limited use of gender analysis, the capacity gap has often led to poor quality project proposals and missed opportunities to mainstream gender equality in policy processes. This weakness is further confirmed by the analysis of country annual reports, which highlights lack of systematic reporting and collection of sex-disaggregated data. Only a few countries reported comprehensively on gender in terms of main achievements, sex-disaggregated data on projects’ beneficiaries, and activities carried out on capacity development, communication, and outreach.1Additionally, the Capacity Needs Assessment conducted in 2018 indicates that of the respondents,2 63 percent stated they would benefit from a gender training.

Concept Note  and  Agenda