Over the past decade, Kazakhstan has made important progress in promoting women’s empowerment in public life. Some important achievements include a Law on Equal Rights and Opportunities and the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence in 2009 as well as a National Gender Equality Strategy (2006-16). There have also been important advances in women’s participation in public life in Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, women remain underrepresented in key decision-making posts. Currently, the share of women in parliament is 27.1% in the House of Representatives and 6.38% in the Senate. To close the remaining gaps, the country has developed a new Family and Gender Equality Policy, which seeks to achieve, by 2030, equality of rights, benefits, responsibilities, and opportunities for men and women in all areas of social life, and the eliminate all forms of gender discrimination. This presents an unprecedented opportunity to develop a whole of government approach to achieving gender equality in practice.

Over the past two decades, the Republic of Kazakhstan has made a range of international commitments, enacted numerous laws, and developed policies that have been instrumental to the improvement of women's participation in public life. Building on its international commitments – such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Millennium Development Goals and the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals – Kazakhstan developed its 2006-16 Strategy for Gender Equality.

Over the past two decades, Kazakhstan made a range of international commitments to advance gender equality. These include the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Millennium Development Goals and the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals. In 2006, the Government of Kazakhstan developed its Strategy for Gender Equality for 2006-16, which served as the main reference for the state gender policy for the past decade. In 2009, the Parliament enacted two important laws: the Law on State Guarantees of Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities for Men and Women and the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence.

This chapter presents a brief overview of the state of play of gender equality and women's empowerment in Kazakhstan. In the past decade, Kazakhstan made important gains in gender equality with the enactment of the Law on State Guarantees of Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities for Men and Women and the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence. There have been also important advances in women’s participation in public life in Kazakhstan, with the current share of women in the House of Representatives at 27.1%. Other areas of achievement include women's integration in the labour market and entrepreneurial activity and significant drop of maternal death rates. Kazakhstan is close to gender parity in access to primary and secondary education with 98.7% net enrolment of girls in primary education in 2015 and ranks among the top countries in this area. Notwithstanding these gains, significant gaps still remain in terms of delivering gender-responsive policies and services at all levels of government. Women still make up for only 8.4% of political-level civil servants; wide gender gaps persist in earnings; and violence against women is still a major problem across the country.

Building on its international commitments, the Government of Kazakhstan concretised its government wide gender policy in the Strategy for Gender Equality for 2006-16. This Strategy demonstrates the important high-level commitment of the Government towards gender equality. The chapter aims to assess to what extent the design of this Strategy allowed for effective and impactful implementation of gender equality objectives in Kazakhstan. It focuses on the alignment of gender equality objectives with broader strategic planning of the Government to ensure that gender equality does not remain at the periphery of the government action. It also assesses the participation of various governmental and non-governmental stakeholders in the design of gender equality objectives. The key findings and policy recommendations of this chapter aim to provide an important basis for the development of the Government's draft Concept on Family and Gender Policy for 2030.

The effectiveness of gender equality strategies is contingent upon the existence of institutional frameworks, adequate funding, continued capacity across government institutions and clear accountability, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. Kazakhstan has made important strides in institutionalizing its gender machinery, which is led by the National Commission on Women’s Affairs, Family and Demographic Policy. Many mechanisms both at the central and at the local levels are already established and Kazakhstan must be applauded for these accomplishments. Yet, further steps are needed to clarify roles and responsibilities of different governmental stakeholders, and strengthening the capacities and resources of all government agencies and actors – namely the Secretariat of the National Commission on Women’s Affairs, Family and Demographic Policy - in gender-sensitive policy making, implementing and monitoring. This chapter assesses the overall institutional framework – institutions’ mandates, the allocation of resources, institutional capacity and accountability mechanisms – for furthering gender equality in Kazakhstan.

Gender mainstreaming is articulated as a goal within the overall National Gender Strategy 2006-16. Steps have been taken to allow for the use of gender mainstreaming tools such as the collection of gender-disaggregated data by an especially dedicated gender statistics unit. Elements of gender analysis of draft legislative acts and Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) within some public entities have been also implemented. However, this chapter observes the need to improve the scope, depth and use of existing gender-disaggregated data, to widen the application of Gender Impact Assessments beyond primary legislation and to better link the allocation of public budgets to expected gender equality results. This chapter examines what tools and mechanisms Kazakhstan is currently using in pursuit of its gender equality objectives. To that end, it references the OECD Recommendation on Gender Equality in Public Life to provide further guidance on how Kazakhstan can ensure inclusive, sustainable gendersensitive policies.