Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2020

Date: Thursday, September 17, 2020

The pandemic has interrupted progress on gender equality, but it can be brought back on course. This year’s edition of “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot” brings together the latest available evidence on gender equality across all 17 Goals, underscoring the progress made, but also the progress interrupted as a result of COVID-19.

Addressing emerging human trafficking trends and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic

Date: Thursday, July 30, 2020

Around the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has created new risks and challenges to victims and survivors of trafficking and has also worsened the vulnerabilities of at-risk groups, especially women and children, to trafficking in human beings. Based on data collected through a global survey of survivors and frontline organizations, this publication analyses the emerging COVID-19 human trafficking trends and consequences and offers concrete policy recommendations to address them.

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.

Guidance note on preparations for gender-responsive Voluntary National Reviews for UN Women country and regional offices

Date: Thursday, June 11, 2020

This guidance note aims to support UN Women country and regional offices on strategic engagement with the Voluntary National Review (VNR) process at the national level to ensure that gender issues are considered and integrated throughout the VNR cycle and subsequently through the implementation, monitoring, and reporting of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Gender, climate and security: Sustaining inclusive peace on the frontlines of climate change

Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Grounded in a series of case studies from research and programming experience, this report offers a comprehensive framework for understanding how gender, climate, and security are inextricably linked.

Spotlight on SDG 8: The impact of marriage and children on labour market participation

Date: Friday, May 8, 2020

How are women’s employment outcomes shaped by domestic and caregiving responsibilities? Drawing on a global dataset and new indicators developed by UN Women and the International Labour Organization, this paper provides insights into the distribution of domestic and caregiving responsibilities within various types of households—insights that are critical at this juncture when policies and programmes are being designed to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic fallout.

Justice for women: High-level Group report

Date: Friday, March 27, 2020

Access to justice for women is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its commitments to gender equality and to peaceful, just, and inclusive societies. This report provides a better understanding of common justice problems facing women and makes the case for increased investments in strategies that work to bring justice closer to women.

Feminist perspectives on the 2030 Agenda in Ecuador: Selective engagement, inclusions and omissions

Date: Thursday, March 26, 2020

This paper examines how the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has been integrated into the national debate on gender equality in Ecuador. It identifies which policies from the Agenda have been taken into account and which have been rejected. It also examines how the actors involved in clarifying the scope of these policies—women’s movements, sexual diversity organizations, public officials, and UN agencies—have coordinated their activities with the Agenda.

Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for Women and Girls Global Flagship Initiative: Second international compendium of practices

Date: Monday, February 24, 2020

This publication illustrates in a practical way how participating cities of the Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Global Initiative are working to implement women’s safety approaches through the lens of intersectionality. These include a range of women-led solutions, from the creation of data, to integrated policies with meaningful participation of women’s rights organizations, to urban planning solutions that prioritize minoritized women, and prevention initiatives addressing discriminatory behaviours.

Spotlight on SDG11: Harsh realities: Marginalized women in cities of the developing world

Date: Monday, February 17, 2020

This study, based on data from 59 low- and middle-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Southern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, finds that women and their families bear the brunt of growing income inequality and failures to adequately plan for and respond to rapid urbanization. The publication examines the effects of multidimensional poverty in urban areas, with women facing greater exposure to life in slum-like conditions than men.

Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2019

Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Are we on track to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls? This report brings together the latest available evidence on gender equality across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, underscoring the progress made as well as the action still needed to accelerate progress.

A manual for gender-responsive land degradation neutrality transformative projects and programmes

Date: Thursday, September 5, 2019

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.

Improvement of the situation of women and girls in rural areas: Report of the Secretary-General (2019)

Date: Thursday, July 25, 2019

This report provides reviews of the activities undertaken by Member States and United Nations entities to enable women and girls, especially the poorest and most marginalized, in rural areas to improve their livelihoods, well-being and resilience in a changing climate.

World survey on the role of women in development: Report of the Secretary-General (2019): Why addressing women’s income and time poverty matters for sustainable development

Date: Monday, June 17, 2019

The 2019 “World survey” is focused on the reasons for the high levels of income poverty and time poverty among women and contains an analysis of the rationale for taking an integrated policy approach to addressing the double bind experienced by women in that regard, as a timely and relevant means of achieving sustainable development, in particular in low-income contexts.

Expert Group Meeting on “Tackling global challenges to equality and inclusion through the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Spotlight on SDGs 10, 13 and 16”: Report and recommendations

Date: Friday, June 14, 2019

UN Women, UNODC, and the UNFCCC Secretariat organized an expert group meeting (EGM) on the gender perspectives of SDGs 10, 13, and 16 on 27–28 February 2019, in Vienna. The EGM report and recommendations are an input to the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and highlight key strategies to be taken by governments, with the support of other stakeholders, to reduce inequalities, tackle climate change, and promote peaceful societies.

A tale of multiple disconnects: Why the 2030 Agenda does not (yet?) contribute to moving German gender equality struggles forward

Date: Friday, May 31, 2019

This study addresses the percolation and domestication of the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Transforming our World” in Germany with a view to understanding its impact on domestic gender equality policies. Concentrating on federal-level policymaking, the main finding of the study is that the 2030 Agenda and SDG 5 have, as of yet, not had a discernible impact on domestic gender equality struggles.

Equality in law for women and girls by 2030: A multistakeholder strategy for accelerated action

Date: Thursday, March 14, 2019

Globally, more than 2.5 billion women and girls are affected by discriminatory laws and the lack of legal protections. This policy strategy seeks to fast track the repeal of discriminatory laws in 100 countries between 2019 and 2023, focusing on six thematic areas, and will address the legal needs of more than 50 million women and girls.

Gender and age-responsive social protection: The potential of cash transfers to advance adolescent rights and capabilities

Date: Friday, March 8, 2019

This policy brief reviews the effects of cash transfers on the rights and capabilities of adolescent girls and boys, using a gender and capability lens and focusing on three key capability domains: education, sexual and reproductive health, and freedom from violence. Based on this evidence, the brief highlights the importance of a “cash plus” approach to enhancing adolescents’ multidimensional well-being and achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The SDGs and feminist movement building

Date: Friday, December 21, 2018

This discussion paper views the whys and hows of feminist engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals in a broader context: the key UN-related processes from the time women began getting involved with them in the 1970s. It was produced for the UN Women flagship report, “Turning promises into action: Gender equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, and released as part of the UN Women discussion paper series.

Gender equality and poverty are intrinsically linked: A contribution to the continued monitoring of selected Sustainable Development Goals

Date: Friday, December 21, 2018

This discussion paper provides an updated analysis of gendered economic inequality in high- and middle-income countries. A review of the literature demonstrates that such an analysis needs to explicitly recognize that gender, poverty, and (economic) inequality are intrinsically linked. It was produced for UN Women’s flagship report, Progress of the World’s Women 2019”, and also released as part of the UN Women discussion paper series.