Generation Equality is the world’s leading initiative to accelerate investment and implementation on gender equality. It brings together organizations from every part of society to catalyse progress, advocate for change, and take bold actions together. For Generation Equality to be successful, commitment makers must report transparently on their commitments. In this inaugural report, commitment-makers share progress to date and where more work is needed.

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.

TRAMSFORM issue 24 features the corporate evaluation of UN Women’s apporach to innovation. 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, its innovation initiatives and the systems, and culture to support innovation.

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.

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.

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.

The present report is focused on the urgent need to address violence against women and girls in digital contexts, as well as on broader efforts to eliminate violence against women, particularly in the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The report provides information on measures taken by Member States and entities of the United Nations system to address violence against women and girls, and contains conclusions and specific recommendations for future action.

The Taliban’s position on women’s rights has been central to its worldview and vision for society. This gender alert documents how changing dynamics in Afghanistan are impacting women’s rights and gender equality one year after the Taliban take-over of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021.

This report contains information on measures taken by Member States and activities carried out within the United Nations system to eliminate all forms of trafficking in women and girls. The report serves to highlight efforts to address the gender dimensions of trafficking, with a special focus on the nexus between the trafficking in women and girls and situations of crisis, including the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), climate change and conflict.

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.

TRANSFORM Issue 23 summraizes the Corporate Evaluation on UN Women’s work on policy advocacy. Policy advocacy work is central to UN Women’s mission of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. The UN Women Independent Evaluation Service led this evaluation to assess UN Women’s policy advocacy efforts, understand what has worked well and identify how UN Women’s policy advocacy work can be strengthened around the world.

Drawing on evidence and the Luxembourg Income Study Database, this policy brief highlights the importance of child support for lone-mother families and factors that may prevent lone mothers from receiving this transfer. It makes a series of recommendations to ensure regular and adequate child support is provided.

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.

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.

The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) launches its annual report for 2021, the first year of its new Strategic Plan (2021-2025). Despite multiple, overlapping crises, UN Trust Fund grantees continued to pivot and transform their operations to meet the increasing needs of women and girl survivors of violence, including those in marginalized communities.

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.

The focus in this guide is climate and disaster risk finance and insurance, a thematic area where gender analysis has been less widely implemented than in some other sectors. This guidance note is part of a capacity-building initiative aimed at enhancing the capacity of sector specialists and gender focal points to produce and utilize gender analysis in their 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.

Using examples of work in 2021 and achievements over the first ten years of the organization, the 2021 report highlights how regular resources remain the bedrock for UN Women to fulfill its unique mandate and make a difference in the lives of women and men around the world.