In October 2019 UNDP Office in Bishkek became one of the eight Country Offices worldwide which became a Gold Member of Gender Equality Seal Program. The program is a corporate mechanism that measures and certifies the achievements and competence of Country Offices, Regional Service Centers and Headquarters Units in advancing women's rights and gender equality. It has three levels of certifications - Bronze, Silver, and Gold.

This blog is about the interconnection of personal commitment and pushing the power of the Gender Equality Seal Program. The blog is prepared by UNDP Kyrgyzstan’s staff member Aidai Arstanbekova - part of the Gender Unit. She is eager to share her experience and outline the gender journey on how her team has become a gender role model.

“The past two years have been very intensive, critical and most dynamic for our office due to commitment to the Gender Equality Seal Certification Program. Since 2012 when we had been awarded a “Gender Star”, we have done a lot of work towards gender equality and women empowerment both country-wide and inside the office.

In June 2018 when we confirmed our commitment to advance the SDG 5 Goal and volunteered to participate in the gender seal exercise. Here I share inputs in enhancing women's rights in Kyrgyzstan, such as the adoption of the National Action Plan on Gender equality 2018-2020; 30% of gender quotas introduced into the composition in local councils; promoting law criminalizing child marriage and bride kidnapping; and 112 emergency hotlines on GBV response.

In addition to that, we ensured the following changes in our organization:

• We Institutionalized gender focal point positions in each of our program area; 
• We systemized and strengthened gender-sensitive HR recruitment processes; 
• We have raised adequate funds for gender mainstreaming work; 
• We integrated thematic learning activities into our office learning plan; 
• We localized corporate sexual harassment and sexual exploitation and abuse policies and accountability mechanism; 
• We established gender-sensitive communications between colleagues and not only in the office but in events, corporates, celebrations. 

Through this systematic work, we’ve confidently outperformed certain benchmarks in the gender seal. For instance, gender parity related indicator of 60% women at all levels in the office instead of the 40% previously claimed target; tens and hundreds of gender-related knowledge products instead of claimed two; mandatory gender screening of all program/project-related documents, talking points and reports; effective and efficient collaboration with the national gender machinery and the UN gender thematic group, and many others.

However, we still had some challenging benchmarks, such as the contribution of 50% of the total program budget to gender equality and ensuring that the mechanism of conflicts and grievances response is available at the workplace. Therefore, our usual comfort zone has changed and moving to the new one is a little like learning to swim in a gender ocean.

So, sometimes it was not comfortable and stressful but sometimes it was full of fun, as it helped us to find not only our weaknesses but also identify strengths and progress. Trying to change the usual way of doing business by addressing all the benchmarks, we have changed inevitably. We now understand that it is not just ticking the box if one wants to receive the certification, however, it is just a snapshot of a long-term change we bring to our office and a country.”