UN Women’s core commitments in humanitarian action – Delivering on UN Women’s mandate in humanitarian crises: A forward-looking agenda

As of August 2025, 300 million people across 73 countries require humanitarian assistance—a sharp rise that underscores the scale of global crises and their disproportionate impact on women, girls, and marginalized groups. Despite clear evidence of gendered impacts, these are often overlooked, especially as humanitarian funding declines. Prioritizing gender equality is essential to ensure effective, accountable, and sustainable humanitarian responses and to prevent setbacks in gender equality gains.

This publication outlines a set of standardized interventions that guide UN Women’s response in humanitarian crises. These commitments are grounded in humanitarian and human rights principles and align with the organization’s broader strategies and frameworks, such as the Humanitarian Strategy (2022–2025) and the Gender Equality Accelerator programme. The commitments are structured around two main pillars: Inter-agency coordination on gender in humanitarian action, and protection and livelihood support for crisis-affected women and girls. 

The core commitments amplify the voices, agency, and leadership of crisis-affected women and girls, accelerating localization through partnerships with local women-led organizations. They ensure that gender equality is central to humanitarian planning, service delivery, and decision-making. The commitments also emphasize accountability, ongoing learning, and adaptation, ensuring that humanitarian action remains gender-responsive, inclusive, and rights-based.