Abstract: Gender inequality, conflict and fragility are key challenges to sustainable development. They are inextricably linked: unequal gender relations can drive conflict and violence, while women's active participation contributes to peace and resilience. This policy paper identifies recommendations for development partners based on four case study countries: Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia and Nepal. It concludes that providing effective support for gender equality and sustainable peace requires an understanding of gender, conflict and fragility that is deeper, wider, and more politically informed than currently, with a strong focus on women as agents of change

This publication provides an overview of the key issues, challenges and opportunities for ensuring more systematic consideration of gender issues in statebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected countries.

This handbook aims to help Asian Development Bank staff and other development practitioners to more effectively plan, design, and implement projects in fragile and conflict-affected settings. The practical examples provided in this handbook have been drawn from the collective tacit knowledge of ADB's operational staff. These practical examples include innovative, flexible, streamlined, and simplified approaches to project processing and implementation that are relevant to fragile situations.

Despite recent advances in important aspects of the lives of girls and women, pervasive challenges remain. These challenges reflect widespread deprivations and constraints and include epidemic levels of gender-based violence and discriminatory laws and norms that prevent women from owning property, being educated, and making meaningful decisions about their own lives--such as whether and when to marry or have children. These often violate their most basic rights and are magnified and multiplied by poverty and lack of education. This groundbreaking book distills vast data and hundreds of studies to shed new light on deprivations and constraints facing the voice and agency of women and girls worldwide, and on the associated costs for individuals, families, communities, and global development. The volume presents major new findings about the patterns of constraints and overlapping deprivations and focuses on several areas key to women s empowerment: freedom from violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, ownership of land and housing, and voice and collective action. It highlights promising reforms and interventions from around the world and lays out an urgent agenda for governments, civil society, development agencies, and other stakeholders, including a call for greater investment in data and knowledge to benchmark progress.

Violent conflicts today are complex and increasingly protracted, involving more nonstate groups and regional and international actors. It is estimated that by 2030—the horizon set by the international community for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals—more than half of the world’s poor will be living in countries affected by high levels of violence. Information and communication technology, population movements, and climate change are also creating shared risks that must be managed at both national and international levels. Pathways for Peace is a joint United Nations†“World Bank Group study that originates from the conviction that the international community’s attention must urgently be refocused on prevention. A scaled-up system for preventive action would save between US$5 billion and US$70 billion per year, which could be reinvested in reducing poverty and improving the well-being of populations. The study aims to improve the way in which domestic development processes interact with security, diplomacy, mediation, and other efforts to prevent conflicts from becoming violent. It stresses the importance of grievances related to exclusion—from access to power, natural resources, security and justice, for example—that are at the root of many violent conflicts today. Based on a review of cases in which prevention has been successful, the study makes recommendations for countries facing emerging risks of violent conflict as well as for the international community. Development policies and programs must be a core part of preventive efforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform, and redistributive policies are required. Inclusion is key, and preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement. Enhancing the participation of women and youth in decision making is fundamental to sustaining peace, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people.

The fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCAS) and small island developing states (SIDS) approach represents a new way of doing business for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its most vulnerable developing member countries. FCAS and SIDS face unique development challenges such as a greater need for governance and institutional capacity building, geographic isolation, small populations, narrow asset bases, and armed conflict. The FCAS and SIDS approach—or FSA—introduces flexible processes and procedures that will allow ADB to tailor interventions to the specific challenges of these countries, with the goal of improving project results, and ultimately improving livelihoods.

Based on the findings of UNRISD ongoing gender research and over 60 specially commissioned studies, the report's analysis is centred on the economic and political reforms of the 1990s. If most of these reforms did not directly address gender equality, they nevertheless received considerable scrutiny from a gender perspective. And whatever their intentions, they had significant and mixed implications for gender relations and women's well-being. The report presents strong arguments for why gender equality must be placed at the core of efforts to reorient the development agenda. Indeed, if some of the key contemporary challenges (economic growth and structural transformation, equality and social protection, and democratisation) are to be met,