Violence against Women
This fundamental violation of women’s rights remains widespread. Women need strong laws, backed by implementation and services for protection and prevention.
Peace & Security
Women bear the brunt of modern conflicts. Specific threats to them must be stopped, and women must be at the centre of peace talks and post-conflict reconstruction.
Leadership & Participation
The percentage of women in political and other leadership roles is too small. Quotas and new skills can expand space for women to realize their leadership potential.
National Planning & Budgeting
Gender equality should be a stated objective of plans to provide public services, backed by specific implementation actions and sufficient funding.
Economic Empowerment
Women lag far behind men in access to land, credit and decent jobs. The multiple barriers that prevent women from seizing economic opportunities must be abolished.
Millennium Development Goals
The MDGs provide a basic roadmap for development. Gender equality is the third goal, but it is also integral to achieving all eight MDGs.
Focus Areas
UN Women is the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.
What's new
Remarks by Ms. Bachelet at the GBC Health meeting in New York. The meeting gathered corporate executives, government leaders, policy makers, civil society visionaries and media champions to explore the future role of business in creating a healthier workplace and world.
On the International Day of Families, learn how a woman-run school canteen project is transforming not only the women involved, but their families and communities too.
UN Women along with UN partners in Afghanistan issued a press statement in the lead up to the NATO Summit on 21-22 May. The statement called on NATO and the Afghan government to fulfill UN Security Council Resolution 1325 which requires all parties to take special measures to protect women and girls in armed conflict.
Related to the work undertaken by UN Women, UNAIDS has launched a new campaign Believe it, Do it, which highlights the global goal of ending new HIV infections among children by 2015, and ensuring HIV-positive women are healthy through pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding.
Almost half a million Kenyan schoolgirls have been given access to free sanitary towels through a State initiative supported by UN Women. The initiative is a great leap forward in a country where many girls miss up to five days of school every month, because of their menstrual cycle.
As the World Economic Forum on Africa kicks off, read how marginalized illiterate women are being empowered as solar engineers in their communities across the region.
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