Gender and Development (GAD) mainstreaming or Gender Mainstreaming is the main strategy for ensuring that the government pursues gender equality in all aspects of the development process to achieve the vision of a gender-responsive society where women and men equally contribute to and benefit from development.

It is a set of processes and mechanisms aimed at recognizing and addressing gender issues in legislation, policies, programs and projects and institutional mechanisms of the government on a sustained basis. It is essentially institutionalizing gender concerns in the mainstream development processes and agenda and not just peripheral programs and projects of the government.