COVID-19 and essential services provision for survivors of violence against women and girls

Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2020

This brief explores the implications for the provision of essential services for women and girls who have experienced violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides recommendations for governments, civil society, and international organizations that are seeking to improve the quality of and access to coordinated health, police and justice, and social services for all women and girls during the crisis and provides examples of promising practices to date.

Family-oriented cash transfers from a gender perspective: Are conditionalities justified?

Date: Thursday, November 21, 2019

This brief reviews a decade of feminist research on conditional cash transfers that has raised serious questions about the assumptions that underpin the use of conditionalities and their impact on poor women’s lives. It highlights concerns about the detrimental effects that conditionalities may have in contexts where quality public services are lacking and where multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination mean that well-intended programme requirements easily slip into coercive and disempowering implementation practices.

The effect of cash-based interventions on gender outcomes in development and humanitarian settings

Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2019

This discussion paper begins by presenting an overview of the latest research on cash transfers, gender protection, and empowerment outcomes. It continues by discussing some of the programme design features to consider when seeking to improve gender outcomes. Finally, the paper concludes with a set of research questions that can help shape future research and practice in this area.

Costing of a package of family-friendly transfers and services to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment: An introduction to the calculations and results

Date: Friday, August 30, 2019

This discussion paper presents a costing analysis for a set of family-friendly services and transfers: income protection for children, people of working age, and older persons; universal health coverage; and early childhood care and education and long-term care services. The costing shows that such a package is affordable in many countries.

Promoting gender equality in sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health: Programming guide

Date: Sunday, June 2, 2019

Recognizing the impact of gender inequality on the sexual and reproductive health of women and the health of their children, this programming guide provides practical guidance and tools to understand the influence of gender inequality on sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH), and how to effectively integrate gender equality into programming.

Eldercare policies in East Asia and Europe: Mapping policy changes and variations and their implications

Date: Friday, December 15, 2017

Adequate and dignified care provision for elderly populations is becoming an urgent policy issue, not only in high-income countries, but also in many middle- and low-income ones. This discussion paper documents and analyses varieties of eldercare policies, and their readjustments, in East Asia and Europe.

Key barriers to women’s access to HIV treatment: A global review

Date: Tuesday, December 12, 2017

This report was written to highlight the experiences of women living with HIV in accessing treatment and quality care. Led by a Global Reference Group of women living with HIV, this global review uses a gender-responsive and human rights-based framework to explore the various factors that impact women's experience and decision making around treatment.

Long-term care for older people: A new global gender priority

Date: Friday, December 1, 2017

This brief synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations on the gender dimensions of long-term care for older people. It underlines the need to build long-term care systems that are financially and socially sustainable and discusses a set of measures that can be taken to improve the situation of care-dependent older persons as well as their caregivers.

Expanding health-care access in the United States

Date: Monday, July 6, 2015

This paper focuses on ways in which women in the United States have been and will be impacted by the passage of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It was produced for UN Women's flagship report Progress of the World's Women 2015-2016 and is released as part of the UN Women discussion paper series.

Gender matters: Overcoming gender-related barriers to prevent new HIV infections among children and keep their mothers alive

Date: Wednesday, January 1, 2014

The findings of this assessment indicates that gender-related barriers pose significant obstacles to the uptake of services that prevent new HIV infections among children and keep mothers alive—obstacles that require urgent attention. Without dedicated attempts to overcome these gender-related barriers, current efforts will meet with limited success, and the needs and rights of both women and children will remain compromised.

Women and health: Today’s evidence, tomorrow’s agenda

Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009

Despite considerable progress in the past decades, societies continue to fail to meet the health-care needs of women at key moments of their lives, particularly in their adolescent years and in older age. The report provides the latest and most comprehensive evidence available to date on women's specific health needs and challenges over their life course, from birth to older age.