this aspect is very important because policies tend to be more effective when targeting the causes of gender inequality and the structures and practices that perpetuate inequalities not merely the outcome of gender inequality in an unjust and unsustainable development process united nations gender statistics have a crucial role in gender mainstreaming in development and poverty reduction policies policies and measures tend to perpetuate and exacerbate inequalities when not adequately tailored to existing gender differentials hedman perucci and sundstrom