Gender Equality and Inclusion

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals offer a historic opportunity to eradicate extreme poverty. To realise this opportunity, governments, multilateral institutions, the private sector, civil society and citizens must act to ensure no one is left behind. To create lasting change, we need to address the root causes of poverty, discrimination and marginalisation within and between countries and the inequalities that ensue. As a registered charity and member of the Crown Agents group committed towards accelerating progress towards the SDGs, Crown Agents International Development takes this call to action very seriously. We are committed to the ‘leave no one behind’ LNOB agenda.

At Crown Agents International Development, our mission is to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems and deliver lasting change for vulnerable populations. However, gender inequality and social exclusion mean that not everyone has equal access and opportunity to achieve these things. To level the playing field, we recognise that we must do more to identify and respond to the specific and diverse needs and priorities of women and marginalised groups. These include individuals and groups that are excluded and discriminated against the basis of individual and intersecting factors such as sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, immigration status, disability status and more. We must also work harder to identify and address the underlying discriminatory laws, policies, norms, and practices that prevent women and marginalised groups from fully participating in and benefiting from all aspects of political, economic and social life. Without this focus on equity, we risk deepening the inequalities that drive poverty, inequality, conflict and instability.

Moving forward, Crown Agents International Development is committed to challenging exclusion and discrimination in all its development and crisis response and recovery programmes. We will strive to ensure all our programmes are informed by the latest research, evidence and learning on what works to advance gender equality and promote inclusion for all. We will aim to ensure everyone treated equitably and no one is left behind in our programmes. To help operationalise these comments, we pledge to:

• • Collect, analyse and report on sex, age and disability disaggregated data.
  • Ensure an intersectional gender and inclusion analysis informs the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of our development and crisis response and recovery programmes.
  • Increase the number and quality of our partnerships with national and local actors, including organisations, movements and groups led by women and marginalised groups, such as persons with disabilities.
  • Adopt a zero-tolerance approach to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment in our aid operations, and ensure we have robust policies and procedures in place to safeguard the communities we work with, as well as our staff, contractors and volunteers.
• Our work is evolving rapidly in this area. We know we are embarking on a long, complex and challenging journey, but we see this as integral to achieving our vision – tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems and delivering lasting change for vulnerable populations.