The “Women in politics: 2023” map, created by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women, presents new data for women in executive positions and national parliaments as of 1 January 2023. Data show that women are underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide and that achieving gender parity in political life is far off.

This UN Women submission was prepared in response to a call for inputs from the UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, for his Report on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Peace and Security.

Double-sided, full-colour poster outlining the key provisions in all ten UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace, and security. The two sides of the poster can be displayed next to each other to create a larger poster, which includes high-level summaries on the obverse and details about each of the ten resolutions on the reverse.

The project supports the promotion of women’s rights through the integration of gender perspectives in efforts to prevent violent extremism. This support is through increase participation of women in security and preventing violent extremism discourse in different platforms and relevant mechanisms. In addition to expanding the knowledge base on gender and violent extremism by conducting localized research and systematic awareness-raising activities, inclusion of women-led grassroots and CSOs in various inter-governmental processes aiming to prevent violent extremism.

The emergence of feminist foreign policies has opened up new opportunities, not least of them a clear and visible brand that makes it easier for the public, civil society, or journalists to hold governments accountable for their commitments to advance gender equality or women's rights. This paper provides a snapshot of recent developments, main themes and modalities, key documents, and future directions.

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 addresses the importance of having a proactive gender-responsive framework for countering terrorism and preventing violent extremism. It offers guidance to UN Women’s community of practice to carry out due diligence, measures that respond to challenges identified, and most importantly, to support risk-aware decision-making at all levels.

This programmatic note outlines UN Women’s theory of change and strategies of implementation in supporting women’s rights in the context of counter-terrorism and prevention of violent extremism.

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.

This report on the proceedings of the global conference “Gender-inclusive peace processes: Strengthening women’s meaningful participation through constituency building” explores current challenges, best practices, and recommendations on how best to leverage the practice of constituency building to further gender-inclusive peace.

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.

The guidance note discusses key concepts and norms about violence against women in politics, including definitions and normative frameworks, and provides practical guidance for addressing violence against women in politics at country level through different interventions.

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.

This issue of TRANSFORM summarizes the “Corporate thematic evaluation of UN Women’s support to National Action Plans on women, peace, and security”. Through this evaluation, the Independent Evaluation Service assessed the criteria of coherence and coordination, effectiveness, organizational efficiency, sustainability, and the extent to which a human rights approach and gender equality principles were integrated into National Action Plans to meet women, peace, and security commitments and adopt accountability frameworks in conflict and post-conflict countries.

This report on the proceedings of the 2018 conference “Women’s meaningful participation in peace processes: Modalities and strategies across tracks”, explores innovations, trends, and challenges in the interplay between official, high-level processes and unofficial processes in which civil society plays a leadership role.

The IPU–UN Women “Women in politics: 2021” map presents global rankings for women in executive, government, and parliamentary positions as of 1 January 2021. The data shows all-time highs for the number of countries with women Heads of State or Heads of Government, as well as for the global share of women ministers.

This brief series recognizes that, despite advancements, we have to build a stronger bridge between empirical scholarly work, new policy directions, and actual practice on the ground. The series seeks to address that gap and contribute to the realization of the women, peace and security agenda through the promotion of evidence-based policy and practice.

UN Women has played a key role in supporting the development and implementation of National Action Plans (NAPs) on women, peace, and security (WPS) as the main tool by which global WPS frameworks are translated into actions and outcomes at national level. The corporate evaluation of WPS NAPs assessed the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and extent to which human rights and gender equality principles were integrated to meet WPS commitments and adopt accountability frameworks.

UN Women organized an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on “Data and violence against women in politics” (VAWP) on 4–5 December 2019, in New York, as a part of its ongoing efforts to tackle this issue. This report provides an overview of the expert discussions and the key takeaways identified during the meeting. It also highlights key discussion points to inform future efforts to collect data on VAWP.

This brief shines a light on the critical role of women’s leadership in responding to COVID-19 and preparing for a more equitable recovery. In addition to considering the pandemic’s immediate impacts on women’s political participation, the brief demonstrates the opportunity to “build back better” by including and supporting women, and the organizations and networks that represent them, in the decision-making processes that will ultimately shape the post-pandemic future.