Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.

Providing women with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large.

Therefore, gender equality and women's empowerment are one of the overarching priorities of UNESCO.

This is a strategy for making women's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally.

The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.

Increasing attention is being placed on gender equality issues buoyed by several legal and normative instruments.

Chief among these are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

The latter emphasizes the key role of the media to promote gender equality in all spheres.

All parties are called to join forces to combat "stereotyping of women and inequality in women's access to and participation in the media".

UNESCO's commitment and strategy to this end is pursued through a two-fold approach: (i) launching specific project and (ii) taking gender-focused actions in all of UNESCO's fields work.