AKFC’s Gender Equality Policy sets out AKFC’s perspective on and approach to gender equality. It represents a commitment by the whole organization to support and promote gender equality within its own internal operations in Canada, and within its programmatic activities in Canada and internationally.
Rationale
This Policy builds on AKFC’s experience in promoting gender equality. AKFC has long recognized the interrelationship between poverty and gender inequality. Since the 1980s, AKFC has advanced gender equality in its work, providing technical support to international partners to comprehensively integrate gender equality in programs, and undertaking research on women’s empowerment and related issues.
Gender equality is critical to AKFC’s mission: women and men are essential participants and contributors to AKFC’s work in addressing the root causes of poverty, finding and sharing effective and lasting solutions which improve the quality of life for poor communities. While gender equality and women’s empowerment are worthy goals in their own right, there is increasing evidence that they also contribute significantly to overall improved quality of life and opportunities for whole communities.
AKFC recognizes that the way it addresses pluralism, gender equality, and diversity within the organization in Canada – through its leadership, structure, policies, working environment, and culture – is inextricably linked to its ability to design and deliver programs that promote gender equality in the societies in which it works. Successful integration of gender equality into AKFC’s work with implementing partners is dependent on the extent to which these principles are internalized and owned by the organization and its staff in Canada.
Objectives
This policy aims to:
- Articulate AKFC’s values and approach to gender equality, for both internal and external audiences.
- Define AKFC’s strategies, accountability framework, and roles and responsibilities of staff and partners such that the organization can hold itself accountable for the full implementation of the Policy both in its work with external partners in Canada and internationally, and in its internal operations.
- Equip AKFC’s management, staff, and volunteers with the tools needed to understand and support gender equality through their attitudes, behaviour, and work within the organization and with partners and volunteers.
