The Gender Unit with funding from the Irish Aid recently hosted the gender mainstreaming training from 16 - 20 September 2013 at the University of Pretoria. This training targets government officials, Irish Aid NGO partners and university staff and is designed to expose a key group of participants to the theory and practice of gender mainstreaming. This year’s participants ranged from representatives of the Philippines, Tanzania and Ethiopia. Also included were participants from various NGOs in Zimbabwe and South Africa as well as representatives from the Department of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities and the University of Pretoria.

This week long training began with a short overview of gender and related concepts and a brief introduction to human rights and gender equality under the UN system as well as a brief introduction to the Women's Protocol to the African Charter. The rest of the themes for the week dealt with Gender Analysis and mainstreaming as well as Gender Planning Monitoring and Evaluation.

The presenters for this training were highly skilled and included representatives from UN Women, the Office of the Deputy President, Choice Trust, University of Bergen as well as the Centre for Human Rights. The week culminated in the development of implementation projects where all the participants designed gender mainstreaming projects to be implemented within their own organisations. They must then return to the Centre for Human Rights early next year to report on the challenges and successes noted in the implementation of their projects as well as general recommendations and reflections to be shared on their mainstreaming

It was an energetic training marked by constant debate and engagement between the participants who were not afraid to take on the various presenters where they did not agree. What a memorable week and we look forward to welcoming the participants of 2013 for the report back session.