Between September 1997 and August 1998, Thailand was among the 30 selected countries that benefited from the special technical assistance known as Gender Mainstreaming Facility (GMF). GMF's objective was to ensure that gender concerns are integrated into all UN's programs and projects in Thailand and that at least 20 per cent of resources are allocated to gender concerns and opportunities.

GMF was launched by UNDP in collaboration with UNIFEM. It provides additional support for improving programming for gender equality and advancement of women in the context of the follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995.

GMF focussed on two major programs: Country Cooperation Framework for Thailand (CCF) and Thailand-United Nations Collaborative Action Plan (THAI-UNCAP). Among the main themes of these two programs are poverty alleviation, sustainable human development and good governance.

As part of the effort to build up and strengthen national gender expertise to continue work on a sustainable basis, gender training was conducted for UNDP staff members and their counterparts and this gender briefing kit has been developed to provide basic information on gender and development in Thailand.