This guide provides an overview of key and emerging issues in the gender and sustainable energy nexus, illustrated by research findings and case studies. It has been drafted with a view to supporting policymakers and development practitioners in government, the private sector, and civil society, as well as in the UN system, who are involved in designing and implementing sustainable energy policies, programmes, and projects.

This paper offers a landscape scan highlighting what is known about technology-facilitated violence against women, who is currently generating this knowledge, and how the evidence is being produced. The paper also highlights some of the related methodological, ethical, and sociopolitical challenges to collecting data on technology-facilitated violence against women. As a way forward, actions for strengthening knowledge generation and data collection are proposed, including recommendations on methods and further research.

UN Women’s work on women’s economic empowerment has a broad and ambitious mandate and aims to strengthen women’s economic rights and respond to pressing global needs. This independent corporate thematic evaluation was undertaken to assess the relevance, effectiveness, coherence, efficiency, and sustainability of UN Women’s contributions to women’s economic empowerment by advancing gender responsive laws, frameworks, policies, and partnerships, and proposes recommendations and insights to strengthen this area of work.

This research paper provides an overview of the global estimates of gender-related killings of women and girls in the private sphere in 2021. It also features policy recommendations to support comprehensive and multisectoral approaches to prevent and address gender-related killings and other forms of gender-based violence against women and girls.

This report showcases global trends in media reporting on gender-based violence and mapped existing evidence on the relationship between news media reporting of gender-based violence against girls and the normalization of violence. Furthermore, the “10 essentials for gender and age-sensitive media reporting of violence against girls” and the report recommend frameworks and principles to practice a gender and age-sensitive reporting of violence against girls.

This paper is part of UN Women’s new research on military expenditure and women, peace, and security and was supported by the generous contribution from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

This publication is a collaboration between the UN Women’s Independent Evaluation Service and the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health to explore the link between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 and SDG 5 (gender equality), as part of a system of interconnected SDGs and indicators within these goals.

This report provides a detailed history and analysis of the survivor-centered social, legal and political strategies that were employed by those involved in the Sepur Zarco case—a landmark 2016 verdict by a Guatemalan court, convicting two former military members of crimes including sexual violence, sexual slavery, and domestic slavery committed against Maya Q’eqchi’ women near a military rest outpost in Sepur Zarco during Guatemala’s internal armed conflict.

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.

The Independent Evaluation Service conducted a meta-synthesis of UN Women's evaluations—evidence and lessons on types of UN Women support. This report collates insights and evidence on the key types of support provided by UN Women during the strategic plan period 2018 to 2021. The evaluative evidence is organized around normative support, integrated policy advice and thought leadership, capacity development and technical assistance, and advocacy and social mobilization.

In 2021, the Independent Evaluation Service condcuted the corporate evaluation on UN Women’s policy advaocy work. The evaluation team assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and coherence of UN Women’s policy advocacy work to deliver high-impact and transformative results in line with the UN Women Strategic Plan 2018–2021. Findings from this evaluation are expected to contribute to strategic decision-making, organizational learning and accountability, and implementation of the UN Women Strategic Plan 2022–2025.

This research paper and policy brief explore what women’s meaningful participation in transitional justice means and “looks like” in policy and practice. The publications focus specifically on women and addressing the unique barriers to women’s meaningful participation in transitional justice processes as a result of gender-based discrimination.

This working paper features data and analyses of women’s representation in 133 countries and areas. The paper considers the impacts of legislated quotas and electoral systems in local elections on women’s political participation and identifies remaining data gaps on women’s political participation in local government, including data disaggregation, underused electoral data, and the need for new data collection tools.

The 2020 gender accountability framework report marks the third monitoring cycle of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)’s 2017 gender policy. It provides a snapshot of the IASC’s output in the calendar year 2020 and allows for cross comparison with the baseline established with the 2018 report.

This report asks what needs to change in the approach of the United Nations system as a whole to make significant practical progress on gender equality in disaster risk reduction by 2030. It asks how the United Nations system, and each individual entity, can better support Member States to empower women and promote women’s leadership in disaster and climate risk governance to underpin risk-informed sustainable development that leaves no one behind.

The impact of gender inequality on the HIV response efforts is widely acknowledged, yet, efforts to rectify this are lagging. UN Women, with the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health, convened an Expert Group Meeting on financing for gender equality in the HIV response and commissioned seven discussion papers to identify existing gaps and map recommendations for action.

This working paper analyses how women leaders at the national and subnational levels of government managed COVID-19 response and recovery from January 2020 through March 2021. The paper finds that women decision-makers demonstrated effective leadership, rapid response, and implemented socially inclusive policies and provides recommendations on how to ensure women’s participation and contribution to the pandemic response and recovery.

In recent years, UN Women has increased its focus on innovation, based on the recognition that innovation and technology frequently do not benefit men and women equally but can potentially be leveraged for women’s empowerment. This evaluation assessed what innovation means for UN Women, the value added of UN Women’s work in this area, as well as its innovation initiatives, and the systems, processes, and culture to support innovation.

This research stems from the development of Regional Women Mediator Networks and the increased value these networks have acquired in recent years. With a focus on the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network, the paper aims to analyze the significant contribution this initiative can offer to the global agenda of Mediation for the 21st century and its unique added value for the next 20 years of the women, peace, and security agenda.

This research explores the causes of the under-investment in gender-inclusive peace in conflict and post-conflict settings and the significant gaps in financing that make the implementation of Women, Peace and security commitments more difficult. This paper focuses on the three case studies of Colombia, Iraq, and the Philippines.