System-wide strategy on gender parity: UN Women’s status report and updated implementation plan

Date: Tuesday, May 4, 2021

The Secretary-General’s “System-wide strategy on gender parity” includes six UN Women–specific recommendations, which were incorporated and highlighted in UN Women’s initial implementation plan (December 2017). As requested by the Secretary-General, this status report and updated implementation plan elaborates on the progress made and results achieved since 2017, based on the specific requests for UN Women. It also reports on UN Women’s system-wide work, as well as internal progress.

Universal basic income: Potential and limitations from a gender perspective

Date: Wednesday, April 21, 2021

This policy brief discusses the potential and limitations of universal basic income (UBI) from a gender perspective and points to some of the specific design features that policymakers need to consider to make UBI work for women and transgender and gender-diverse people.

Beyond COVID-19: The feminist plan for sustainability and social justice

Date: Monday, April 5, 2021

As the world learns to live with COVID-19, to emerge from the current crisis, and to “build back better”, UN Women will launch The Feminist Plan for Sustainability and Social Justice, a visionary but practical roadmap for putting gender equality, social justice, and sustainability at the centre of the recovery. It will feed into UN Women’s Generation Equality Forum and Action Coalitions, aimed at accelerating commitment, action, and financing for gender equality.

Assessing the gendered employment impacts of COVID-19 and supporting a gender-responsive recovery

Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2021

This policy tool is designed to document the extent to which gender inequalities in the labour market are being exacerbated by the pandemic, thereby informing a better understanding on how to protect workers and promote a gender-responsive economic recovery. The tool will also help identify policies for improving working conditions in female-dominated economic sectors and promoting greater inclusion of women workers in new promising sectors, thus widening their opportunities.

How to assess fiscal stimulus packages from a gender equality perspective

Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2021

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.

A guide to public investments in the care economy: Policy support tool for estimating care deficits, investment costs, and economic returns

Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2021

UN Women has emerged as a global leader in the promotion of the care economy, and this work has highlighted the urgent need to invest in childcare facilities through private and public partnerships to reduce women’s unpaid care work and to allow women to take an active role in the economy. This policy tool provides a blueprint for making a policy case for sustained investment in the care economy.

COVID-19 and women’s rights organizations: Bridging response gaps and demanding a more just future

Date: Monday, March 22, 2021

This brief provides evidence of the different ways in which women’s rights organizations have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the predicament that many of them face of increased relevance and demand at the same time as civic closure, restrictive work conditions, and diminishing funding. The brief also identifies a set of recommendations to strengthen these organizations in the immediate term and to pave the way for a more equal future.

Strengthening gender measures and data in the COVID-19 era: An urgent need for change

Date: Thursday, March 4, 2021

The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated existing gender data gaps that undermine our ability to intentionally craft gender-responsive policies and programmes. Filling these data gaps poses a significant challenge as many data collection efforts have been disrupted due to COVID-19 control measures, but without addressing these gender data gaps and collection obstacles, we cannot fully understand or mitigate the gendered impacts of the pandemic.

Key stakeholders’ perspectives for UN Women’s next strategic plan

Date: Friday, February 12, 2021

This report presents key stakeholders’ perspectives around UN Women’s strategic plan 2022–2025 based on a survey conducted in 2020 as part of global, regional, and country consultations. The report covers key reflections on UN Women’s work to-date and strategies for achieving greatest impact, and for ensuring the next strategic plan navigates the entity well into its second decade and throughout the first half of the Decade of Action to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Make parity a reality: Field-specific enabling environment guidelines

Date: Monday, January 18, 2021

These field-specific enabling environment guidelines provide tailored guidance for personnel in the field, especially in mission settings, to help increase the representation of women and accelerate efforts to reach gender parity in the UN system. The guidelines support the implementation of the UN Secretary-General’s system-wide strategy on gender parity and complement the enabling environment guidelines for the UN system and its supplementary guidance.

Work with men and boys for gender equality: A review of field formation, the evidence base and future directions

Date: Friday, November 6, 2020

This discussion paper assesses the evidence base of the “men for gender equality” field in light of three aspects of its emergence as a field, namely: its un-interrogated use of the category of “men”, its recourse to social psychological accounts of gender norms, and the implications of its NGO form for its ability to collaborate with and be accountable to resurgent intersectional feminist mobilizations.

UN Women impact stories series

Date: Monday, October 5, 2020

This series, updated quarterly, illustrates the human impact of UN Women’s work across the world, highlighting the partnerships that make this work possible. These stories share how we and our many partners are striding forward to realize a better world for women and girls

Insights on organizational effectiveness and efficiency: A meta-synthesis of UN Women evaluations

Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2020

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.

25 years after Beijing: A review of the UN system’s support for the implementation of the Platform for Action, 2014–2019

Date: Wednesday, September 30, 2020

This report is a first-of-its-kind initiative of the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE), the single largest network of gender focal points in the UN system. It presents a critical stocktaking of 51 UN entities’ support to the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2014–2019.

Manual for facilitators: Gender-responsive United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework engagement

Date: Tuesday, September 1, 2020

This training manual will support both UN Women and UN system staff to better approach the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework Engagement (UNSDCF) from a gender perspective. It provides guidance to facilitators and organizers on how to plan, prepare for, and conduct training on gender-responsive UNSDCF engagement.

‘Who holds the microphone?’ Crisis-affected women’s voices on gender-transformative changes in humanitarian settings: Experiences from Bangladesh, Colombia, Jordan and Uganda

Date: Friday, August 14, 2020

This research uses participatory methodologies to explore the experiences of diverse crisis-affected women around gender-transformative change in four humanitarian settings in Bangladesh, Colombia, Jordan, and Uganda. The study provides entry points and recommendations for Grand Bargain signatories to move towards gender-transformative humanitarian action by enhancing women’s meaningful participation in humanitarian responses, and the localization of humanitarian action to women’s rights organizations and self-led groups.

Data and violence against women in politics: Expert group meeting report and recommendations

Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2020

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.

The digital revolution: Implications for gender equality and women’s rights 25 years after Beijing

Date: Friday, August 7, 2020

The digital revolution brings immense potential to improve social and economic outcomes for women. Yet, it also poses the risk of perpetuating existing patterns of gender inequality. This report begins by outlining a conceptual framework for understanding the mutual shaping relationship between gender and technology. It then focuses on three areas to identify opportunities and risks in the digital revolution: education, work, and social/welfare services.

RESPECT Women: Preventing violence against women – Implementation package

Date: Friday, July 31, 2020

This implementation package is a suite of practical resources and tools to support the implementation of the RESPECT Women: Preventing Violence against Women Framework. The package is built upon the global evidence base, expert recommendations and practitioner consensus to support policy makers and practitioners in developing ethical and effective VAW prevention programming.

Spotlight on gender, COVID-19 and the SDGs: Will the pandemic derail hard-won progress on gender equality?

Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Health emergencies such as COVID-19, and the response to them, can exacerbate gender inequality and derail hard-won progress not only on SDG 3 but on all the SDGs. This paper draws insights from emerging data and shines a spotlight on the long-term impact of the crisis on the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The paper concludes by outlining policy priorities drawn from the evidence presented.