Gender and Human Rights

Photo credit: Wolfgang Diedrich

NIRAS is proud to lead by example in our efforts to promote gender equality and human rights around the world. Aside from providing technical assistance in projects specifically focussed on gender equality and human rights, we strive for transformative change and apply gender mainstreaming and the human-rights-based approach in every sector and project we operate.

Ensuring human rights and gender equality is critical for achieving all the sustainable development goals. Reducing inequalities and improving democratic participation contributes to economic growth and better governance. It is also essential for the efficient provision of and access to public services, such as healthcare and basic and higher education, equal access to finance and for the reduction of gender-based violence. No one should be excluded from actively contributing to and shaping the development of the society in which they live. By challenging social and gender norms and promoting equality, girls, women, boys, men and gender non-binary persons are able to reach their full potential as individuals.

Applying a human-rights-based approach to all our competence areas enables us to make international human rights standards a foundation of our work.

At NIRAS, we work in line with international conventions and treaties by focusing our work on both right-holders and duty-bearers. Our aim is to increase the capacity of these groups to exercise and claim their rights and meet their obligations. We do this by always employing participatory approaches in our work, being inclusive of all groups in their diversity (such as people living with disabilities, SOGIESC, the elderly, youth, indigenous people etc.), and understanding the contextual and historical inequalities that are embedded in certain systems. We believe that capacities, practices and behaviours need to change both on a system as well as individual level. Therefore our work focuses on institutions, regulations and structures, but also on communities, individuals, and women, men, boys and girls in their diversity.

NIRAS has a strong track-record of managing gender and human rights projects and we have proven experience in overseeing comprehensive, norm-changing projects, for instance challenging harmful attitudes and working procedures within the public sector.

Some of the services we can offer you include:

Inclusive development through the application of rights-based approaches, gender mainstreaming and gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) across all sectors;
Experienced teams of respected professionals, highly skilled in managing complex projects and programmes;
Strong in-house capacity combined with long-term cooperation and easy access to thousands of relevant external gender experts;
Transformative programming, including working with men and boys and intersectional needs;
Extensive expertise in strengthening institutions and empowering civil society organisations by mainstreaming gender and social inclusion and promoting women’s economic and political empowerment;
Experience in the work on prevention of violence against women (VAW);
Global leaders on applying gender approaches to public financial management including gender-responsive budgeting and the emerging gender-responsive procurement;
Context-specific gender analysis, assessments and planning including designing inclusive MEL frameworks and gender-sensitive indicators;
“Do no harm” principles across programming and high standards of duty of care procedures;
Facilitation of training courses, workshops & seminars;
Expertise in nexus issues and cross-cutting themes including women, peace and security, gender and the environment/climate change, equality in global health/SRHR etc.