This guidance note offers analysis and recommendations to the United Nations system on how to leverage the platform of the UN Global Focal Point for the Rule of Law (GFP) to advance the implementation of the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda. The publication highlights the existing and potential value of the GFP as a coordination mechanism for gender-responsive rule of law support, through which the United Nations can more effectively and efficiently promote the implementation of the WPS agenda, including the advancement of gender equality and women’s human rights.

Drawing on a unique global dataset of nearly 5,000 measures adopted by 226 countries and territories in response to COVID-19, this UN Women and UNDP report finds that government responses paid insufficient attention to gender dynamics, though instances of innovation hold important lessons for gender-responsive policymaking during crises. The report analyses the factors that led to a strong gender response, generating key lessons for resilience and preparedness for future shocks.

This guidance tool aims to explain the practical steps towards enhancing the quality of women’s land rights data and statistics for data producers, analysts, and researchers. In doing so, it addresses critical gaps in the quality of the design, collection, analysis, management, and dissemination of data and statistics on women’s land rights. This tool is for use by data producers and data users alike.

The Gender Equality Working Group of the Sustainable Development Goal 3 Global Action Plan on Healthy Living and Well-being for All, chaired by UN Women, along with the Gender and Health Hub at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health, developed a guidance note and a checklist of key actions to respond to gender-related barriers to vaccine access for countries to prioritize in COVID-19 national deployment and vaccination plans.  

Grounded in a series of case studies from research and programming experience, this report offers a comprehensive framework for understanding how gender, climate, and security are inextricably linked.

This rapid assessment examines how the impacts of COVID-19 are threatening women’s ability to access justice. The assessment reflects challenges faced by women and girls of diverse backgrounds and socio-economic groups, including those experiencing overlapping disadvantages and those facing amplified challenges in humanitarian settings. Cross-regional and local experiences are highlighted, and quantitative data is utilized where available.

This brief explores the implications for the provision of essential services for women and girls who have experienced violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides recommendations for governments, civil society, and international organizations that are seeking to improve the quality of and access to coordinated health, police and justice, and social services for all women and girls during the crisis and provides examples of promising practices to date.

We know that violent extremism has gendered impacts. But how do gendered power relations influence violent extremism, including why individuals join extremist groups, how these groups function, and what beliefs they hold? UN Women and UPDP commissioned this research volume of expert analyses to explore how unequal gender power structures, including masculinity, fuel and shape violent extremism in South and Southeast Asia.

This study, based on data from 59 low- and middle-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Southern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, finds that women and their families bear the brunt of growing income inequality and failures to adequately plan for and respond to rapid urbanization. The publication examines the effects of multidimensional poverty in urban areas, with women facing greater exposure to life in slum-like conditions than men.

This publication summarizes the discussions of the Expert Group Meeting, held on 5–6 June 2018 in Nairobi, and highlights a set of actionable recommendations to support the accelerated gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. UN Women, UN Environment, and UN-Habitat prepared the report and recommendations as a contribution to the 2018 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

Access to justice is critical for the effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “A practitioner’s toolkit on women’s access to justice programming” was developed by UN Women, UNDP, UNODC and OHCHR to stimulate bolder gender-responsive justice interventions. It harnesses experiences, lessons learned, and promising practices for creating non-discriminatory and inclusive justice systems, empowering women and girls to claim and fully realize their rights.

This guide focuses on the scourge of violence against women in elections. It identifies specific components of violence against women in elections, including types, tactics, victims and perpetrators, and presents policy and programming options based on current good practices to ensure that women can exercise their political rights.

The Essential services package forms part of the United Nations Joint Global Programme on Essential Services for Women and Girls Subject to Violence. This programme is a partnership by UN Women, UNFPA, WHO, UNDP and UNODC which aims to provide greater access to a coordinated set of essential and quality multi-sectoral services for all women and girls who have experienced gender-based violence. This programme is supported by the Governments of Australia and Spain.

Prevention cannot be a short-term effort, but rather an endeavour that requires ongoing commitment from governments and other stakeholders, increased research to inform and monitor progress, and persistent action that addresses violence against women at its source. The joint UN framework draws together contemporary knowledge and practice in violence prevention. Its focus is on addressing the root causes as well as risk and protective factors associated with violence against women.

This report provides a unique quantification of the costs in terms of lost growth opportunities and an estimate of what societies, economies, and communities would gain if the gender gap in agriculture is addressed. The findings of this report are striking, and send a strong signal to policy makers in Africa as well as development partners that closing the gender gap is smart economics. Consider this: closing the gender gap in agricultural productivity could potentially lift as many as 238,000 people out of poverty in Malawi, 80,000 people in Tanzania, and 119,000 people in Uganda.

The Guide examines the role of electoral management bodies (EMBs) in encouraging the participation of women across the electoral cycle. The Guide is directed to electoral administrations and the international assistance providers, and highlights the important work being carried out by offering concrete examples of steps that can be taken to remove remaining barriers that continue to affect women’s participation in electoral processes.

In 2012–2013, UN Women, UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA and the MDG-Fund, in partnership with the Governments of Norway and Spain, undertook a corporate joint evaluation of joint programmes on gender equality in the United Nations system to address a gap in evidence on country-level joint gender programmes (JGPs).