As a cross-cutting theme, gender is one of the two most significant ones, underpinning all seven of COL’s initiatives. The other is eLearning.

One-third of the world’s poor live in Commonwealth countries and two-thirds of them are women. Poverty has a female face. COL recognises that the advancement of the goals of gender equality and women’s empowerment are central to its agenda of learning for development. For COL, gender equality is a cross-cutting corporate goal which requires that both women’s and men’s views, interests and needs shape its programmes.