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.

The war in Ukraine has had devasting impact on women and girls worldwide, widening gender gaps, and increasing rates of food insecurity, malnutrition, and energy poverty. This policy paper reviews the available evidence, recommending urgent attention to its consequences for women and girls. It is complementary to the briefs produced by the UN Secretary-General’s Global Crisis Response Group on the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the global response and recovery.

In this report, the UN Secretary-General provides information on the global prevalence of female genital mutilation and its impacts on women and girls, referencing recent data and evidence on what works to eliminate it. He provides an analysis of progress made to date by Member States, the UN system, and other relevant stakeholders. He also includes information on efforts to anticipate and address the impacts of global humanitarian crises and ongoing conflicts on the elimination of female genital mutilation. He draws conclusions and proposes recommendations for future actions.

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.

This Rapid Gender Analysis, carried out by UN Women and CARE International, seeks to draw attention to the gender dynamics in the humanitarian crisis resulting from the war in Ukraine. It also proposes recommendations for humanitarian leadership, actors, and donors to ensure consideration of the gendered dimensions of risk, vulnerability, and capabilities in response to this crisis.

The Rapid gender analysis seeks to draw attention to the gender dynamics in the war in Ukraine—both preexisting and emerging—and draws out recommendations for humanitarian leadership, actors and donors to ensure consideration of the gendered dimensions of risk, vulnerability and capabilities in response and preparedness to this crisis.

This guidance note provides recommendations on how to apply a gender lens in political and conflict analysis in a way that allows the integration of gender as a variable of power across social, political, and economic analysis of conflict as opposed to addressing issues specific to women and girls in siloed analysis. This approach reveals the critical links between gender dynamics of conflict and peacebuilding.

This toolkit for identifying gender persecution in conflicts and atrocities provides a framework for recognizing and understanding illicit conduct that amounts to gender persecution to investigators, lawyers, advocates, documenters, first responders, and others who engage in identifying gender-based crimes or their victims in conflict and atrocity settings.

In the first “gender alert” since the Taliban took over Kabul on 15 August 2021, UN Women brings gender data and analyses on the impact of the rapidly evolving context on women’s rights in Afghanistan.

This training manual is designed for actors involved in the prevention and countering of violent extremism (P/CVE) in Europe and Central Asia including state officials, members of non-governmental organizations, community activists, staff of UN agencies, international and regional organizations to help them understand violent extremism’s gender dimensions.

Confidence building is an area that is receiving significant attention in mediation processes around the world. Meanwhile, feminist analysis of the theories and practices of confidence building is nascent. Based on conference discussions, this report summarizes perspectives and early analysis on confidence building from a women, peace, and security perspective. It also offers preliminary recommendations for further research and action.

This brief addresses the importance of women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation to an effective pandemic response and to peacemaking efforts, and how the women, peace and security agenda can provide a critical framework for inclusive decision-making and sustainable solutions. It also provides preliminary analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on women’s participation in ceasefires and peace processes and offers a series of recommendations, including on “building back better”.

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 manual provides step-by-step guidance to Parties to United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on integrating gender issues and promoting gender equality in the design of transformative land degradation neutrality (LDN) projects. It builds on work launched by UN Women, the UNCCD, and the International Union on the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in advising governments on transformative efforts to avoid, reduce, and reverse land degradation through gender- and socially equitable means.

This report explores the gender, age, and religious identity dynamics that contributed to a disproportionate number of young men traveling from the small Pankisi Gorge region of Georgia to become foreign terrorist fighters in the Middle East from 2014 to 2016.

These papers support women’s meaningful participation and the integration of gender perspectives in peace processes that aim to end violent intra-state conflict. The key target audience is women, gender equality advocates, and others engaged in peace processes, who wish to influence negotiations.

This research paper explores the gender dimensions of biodiversity conservation and the global norms on gender equality and natural resource management within the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The paper further identifies the main entry points for strengthening gender considerations in decisions of the Parties to the CBD and in the implementation of the Convention, as well as in the future work of Parties and other stakeholders.

This report reflects the findings of the May 2018 Expert Group Meeting on women’s meaningful participation in negotiating peace and the implementation of peace agreements, and offers key insights from leading practitioners and experts on the progress and challenges for women’s meaningful participation across a diverse range of countries and peace processes.

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.

More than one third of the Earth’s land is currently degraded, affecting 2.6 billion people. Land degradation impacts men and women differently, making it imperative to address the persistent gender inequalities that fuel women’s extreme poverty. This paper analyses land degradation with a gender perspective and concludes with recommendations for the gender-responsive implementation of the Convention to Combat Desertification.