This action kit is a practical tool directed to actors who want to build an effective system for integrating gender responsive budgeting into the annual state budget process, such as Members of Parliament (MPs), parliamentary staff, committees, caucuses of women MPs, and other actors, including UN Women or other United Nations entities who may want to initiate and support a stronger role for parliaments in gender responsive budgeting.

This publication provides a summary of the key statistics on the representation of women in the UN system, barriers to achieving gender parity, and recommended actions to assist UN entities to reach gender parity.

This report summarizes the Global Annual Gender Focal Point Meeting held on 18–20 October 2021. Gender Focal Points met to exchange good practices and were provided with capacity building and training, tools and knowledge exchange, and opportunities to learn from leaders and experts from the UN system, civil society, and academia on how to drive change across the UN system.

This publication presents, through case studies, how leading public development banks (PDBs) have committed and are delivering on the gender equality agenda. The analysis covers what it takes to adopt gender-responsive principles, mechanisms, and tools, as well as foster gender mainstreaming approaches in the programming and funding cycles of PDBs. The publication concludes with 10 actions that PDBs can take now to enhance their commitments and practices.

This report assesses the status of women in the UN system for the period from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2019. It contains recommendations aimed at assisting entities in the UN system to achieve gender parity, including through rigorous implementation of policies and a range of coordinated actions.

In 2021, the Independent Evaluation Service conducted the corporate evaluation of UN Women’s UN system coordination and broader convening role in ending violence against women (EVAW) as part of its Corporate Evaluation Plan. The evaluation provides an overall assessment of UN Women’s UN system coordination and broader convening role in the area of EVAW and includes a forward-looking analysis with a view to informing UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2022–2025.

This policy brief presents entry points for the application of gender-responsive budgeting to COVID-19 support and recovery packages. Drawing on country examples, the brief provides recommendations on the use of gender budgeting tools to identify gaps in policy responses and direct spending towards gender-responsive COVID-19 support and recovery packages.

UN Women continues to argue that it is important to ensure that adopted economic stimulus and recovery package are gender-responsive. Packages must be implemented in a way that does not disproportionally and negatively impact women and girls. Policies adopted in response to the COVID-19 crisis must identify areas that macro-level policies can effectively target to address gendered impacts of the crisis. This policy tool is specifically designed to achieve this.

UN Women introduced the flagship programme initiatives (FPIs) as a means of consolidating and scaling-up the entity’s programming modalities to be fitter for purpose in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and United Nations reform. In 2020, the Independent Evaluation Service, in collaboration with the Internal Audit Service, assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and coherence of the FPIs and their integration as thematic priorities of the Strategic Plan 2018–2021.

UN Women leads and coordinates a United Nations system–wide network of more than 300 gender focal points. The Global Annual Meeting of Gender Focal Points and Focal Points for Women in the United Nations brings the network together in person and supports the gender focal points in their ongoing work to enhance gender parity and an enabling environment in their respective entities. This report provides a summary of the 2020 global annual meeting, key conclusions and best practices from the sessions.

This meta-synthesis brings together evidence from evaluations of UN Women’s organizational effectiveness and efficiency outputs. In addition to highlighting progress, the synthesis captures commonly identified drivers of change in the form of good practices and innovation, as well as impediments.

This document sets out the evaluation policy of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). The policy governs the independent evaluation function of UN Women and applies to all initiatives supported and funds administered by the Entity.

This brief presents emerging evidence of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on women’s economic empowerment. It considers the immediate gendered economic impacts, including widening socioeconomic divides and shifting national and international priorities for the allocation of resources, as well as the long-term implications for women’s employment and livelihoods.

This report provides a summary of the 2019 Global Annual Meeting of Gender Focal Points and Focal Points for Women in the United Nations, organized in September 2019. It includes conclusions from the sessions and action points for accelerating gender parity efforts and implementing an enabling environment across the UN system. The report concludes with remarks by the UN Women Executive Director and recognition of good examples of implementing the “Enabling environment guidelines”.

Issue 15 of TRANSFORM focuses on governance and national planning (GNP), an area of work that has contributed to UN Women’s identity and for which it is recognized and valued. The evaluation of UN Women’s GNP portfolio from 2011 to 2017 assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and extent to which human rights approach and gender equality principles were integrated adequately in UN Women’s approach to GNP.

In this report, the UN Secretary-General assesses the status of women in the United Nations system for the period from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2017. Since the previous report, the representation of women in the Professional and higher categories in the United Nations system has increased from 42.8 per cent to 44.2 per cent. The largest increases were registered at the highest levels (Under-Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General), which is a direct result of the efforts of the Secretary-General in line with his commitment to reach parity at the highest levels by 2021.

Governance and national planning (GNP) is an area of work that has contributed to UN Women’s identity and for which it is recognized and valued. The evaluation of UN Women's GNP portfolio from 2011 to 2017 assessed the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and extent to which human rights approach and gender equality principles were integrated adequately in UN Women’s approach to GNP.

TRANSFORM Issue 14, “Working together to empower voices”, is a special edition focused on the inter-related themes of gender, evaluation, transformative change, marginalized voices, and leaving no one behind in pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 5.

This report provides a summary of the Global Annual Meeting of Gender Focal Points and Focal Points for Women in the United Nations, held in October 2018.