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.

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 brochure captures the underlying features and best practices of UN Women’s Second Chance Education (SCE) programme. This illustrative brochure captures some of the broad transformative approaches, including support to address gender-based barriers, gender-transformative life skills, SCE learning pathways, advocacy and policy work, personalized support, and e-learning. Specific scenarios from different SCE programme geographies are also discussed in the brochure.

This publication is an account of the experiences of implementing UN Women’s Second Chance Education (SCE) programme in the six countries in which it was piloted: Australia, Cameroon, Chile, India, Jordan, and Mexico. It provides extensive examples of the ways that implementing partners have designed and delivered the components of the programme in different contexts, along with thoughts from staff, volunteers, and participants.

This handbook provides an overview of the characteristics of the Second Chance Education (SCE) hubs: physical spaces where women who are part of the SCE Programme participate in in-person learning activities. This publication is underpinned by a series of virtual hub tours that provide a glimpse into the way partners have been carrying out the programme across six different countries.

Drawing on the experiences of UN Women’s Second Chance Education (SCE) programme, this guide offers practical guidance on implementing a gender-transformative second chance education programme for women. It describes SCE’s signature features and gives examples of how they have been implemented in the different contexts of the six pilot SCE countries of Australia, Cameroon, Chile, India, Jordan, and Mexico.

This publication delves into the lessons learned through UN Women’s Second Chance Education (SCE) Programme’s online learning initiatives in the six countries in which SCE was piloted: Australia, Cameroon, Chile, India, Jordan, and Mexico. Thousands of women have been introduced to e-learning through SCE for the first time. This publication draws on the experiences across all six countries and outlines the top 10 lessons learned.

This report compares several regulatory and policy measures seeking to promote gender-responsive procurement (GRP) in various jurisdictions around the globe. The report also sets out the international human rights law framework relevant to GRP and explores several national legal frameworks.

On 24 December 2022, the Taliban banned women from working in international and national non-governmental organizations, the latest attack in a series of systematic infringements on the fundamental rights of women and girls since August 2021. Developed two weeks after the ban, this gender alert analyses the impact of the directive through the insights of Afghan women’s civil society organizations.

The latest available Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 data show that the world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030. “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2022” presents the latest evidence on gender equality across all 17 Goals, calling out the long road ahead to achieve gender equality. It emphasizes the interlinkages among the goals, the pivotal force gender equality plays in driving progress across the SDGs and women and girls’ central role in leading the way.

Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 74/235 on women in development, in the present report, the Secretary-General considers global evidence and trends and reviews and assesses measures taken at the national level, since 2019, regarding gender-responsive poverty eradication, social protection, and labour market policies; women’s labour and human rights and ending gender-based discrimination; women’s entrepreneurship; women’s and girls’ unpaid care and domestic work and women’s paid care work; gender-based violence and sexual harassment; universal access to healthcare services, including sexual and reproductive health; and the right to education throughout the life cycle, taking into account the impacts of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in these areas.

This toolkit serves as an introductory reference for those working on care as a means to achieve gender equality, the empowerment of women and girls, and the Sustainable Development Goals and to promote the rights and wellbeing of care providers and recipients. It follows the “5R framework for decent care work”: Recognize, reduce, and redistribute unpaid care work, and reward and represent paid care work.

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 publication explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s economic empowerment in the tourism sector which has disproportionately affected women due to pre-existing gender inequalities and women’s predominance in the sector’s workforce. The document examines emerging research and data, identifies innovative responses across regions, and makes concrete recommendations for action to ensure that women’s economic empowerment is central to the COVID-19 response and recovery in the tourism sector.

The report presents the evidence-based business case for gender-responsive procurement. It makes the case for companies to rethink their procurement practices, framing gender-responsive procurement as a way to create social and economic value amid increasing economic uncertainty.

This brief analyses the extent to and ways in which countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made extensive use of social protection instruments to confront the economic and social fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a unique data set of national social protection strategies from 30 countries in the region, it finds that while a significant number of strategies acknowledge gendered risks and vulnerabilities, few include specific actions to address them. The brief concludes with a set of recommendations.

This publication summarizes the key challenges women-owned and women-led businesses are facing when competing for public procurement opportunities and presents the main approaches and policies that have made a difference across the globe. Examples from several countries are highlighted, including Dominican Republic, Chile, Colombia, Kenya, South Africa, and United Arab Emirates.

This policy brief explores the ways in which being a migrant accentuates the risks of women and girls to various forms of gender-based violence at all stages of migration and examines how this has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief concludes with a set of recommendations on how to reduce the risks of gender-based violence and improve the provision and coordination of essential services for women and girls.

The pandemic has tested and even reversed progress in expanding women’s rights and opportunities. “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2021” presents the latest evidence on gender equality across all 17 Goals, highlighting the progress made since 2015 but also the continued alarm over the COVID-19 pandemic, its immediate effect on women’s well-being, and the threat it poses to future generations.

This study highlights the laws and policies in G7 countries that impact the lives of women. It showcases the progress of 350 companies (largest 50 companies in each G7 country) against Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) indicators, underscoring the importance of WEPs as a framework in providing concrete steps to advance women’s economic empowerment in the workplace, marketplace, and community.