Gender Mainstreaming: Lessons for Diversity

The promotion of gender, ethnic and equal opportunity policies in the defence sector is a key issue. This paper examines the importance of developing policy and setting international standards – areas where lessons from gender issues might be applied to those of diversity. Efforts to promote gender mainstreaming by the United Nations challenge stereotypes and discriminatory practices in and by armed forces. Mainstreaming a gender or diversity perspective is a strategy for making these perspectives an integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of polices and programmes.