Gender Equality

This publication provides recommendations to governments and standards bodies to improve voluntary norms and standards for gender equality and women’s empowerment. This best practice is based on the broad analysis contained herein, which includes examples of gender-blind standards that have resulted in sub-optimal outcomes for women as professionals, consumers, and members of wider communities. To maximize the relevance of the research, the publication references three main families of standards: voluntary sustainability standards; standards related to agriculture and produce; and standards developed by regional, national and international bodies relating to goods and services. It also highlights actions necessary for the international community going forward, presenting in detail the UNECE Gender Responsive Standards Initiative and encouraging standards bodies to sign and implement the Declaration on Gender Responsive Standards.

As violent extremist activities around the world increasingly target women and women’s rights, this training manual is designed for actors involved in the prevention and countering of such violent extremism in Europe and Central Asia. It aims to support the relevant actors, including state officials, NGOs, community activists, UN staff, and international and regional organizations, in understanding violent extremism’s gender dimensions. While women are often portrayed only as victims in the face of the sexual and gender-based violence used to terrorize communities, they are also on the frontlines of prevention and response, leading civil society organizations and bolstering social resilience. Promoting women as agents of peace recognizes and respects their contributions to and perspectives on peacebuilding and renders Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) more effective, sustainable and meaningful.

Sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health (SRMNAH) is an essential component of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite a steady drop in maternal and newborn deaths since 1990, hundreds of thousands of women and newborns around the world continue to die each year during pregnancy and childbirth: an estimated 289,000 women and about 3 million newborn babies died in 2013 alone. The vast majority of loss of life is due to complications and illnesses that could be prevented with proper antenatal care and the presence of a skilled midwife during delivery. In recognition of the need to improve such realities and overall SRMNAH, this publication focuses on the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of midwifery services and the pivotal role midwifes play within the wider SRMNAH workforce.

This discussion paper focuses on the interconnections between policies to move toward universal health care (UHC) as a key element of social protection and those to advance gender equality, women’s empowerment, and human rights. Based on an analysis of country experiences, it shows how gender is a key fulcrum on which all health system elements are leveraged and is hence central to achieving UHC.

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 for implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, showcasing key actions in areas such as women’s empowerment, the elimination of violence against women and girls, and the improvement and expansion of women’s education, political participation and entrepreneurship. As this report makes clear, UN system support for achieving gender equality remains critical, and urgent, sustained, and coordinated action is needed to safeguard the well-being of women and girls everywhere.

Are women any less corrupt than men? This publication is a first, comprehensive foray into this complex, multilayered subject that affects every society and country in the world differently. It underlines the importance of understanding how national, cultural and social norms interact and shape corrupt practices. With the United Nations Convention against Corruption as cornerstone, the publication highlights how many of the gender dimensions of corruption are not sufficiently addressed in national contexts. It examines the evolution and relevance of the key international instruments and emphasises the importance of evidence-based policy making. It also explores how gender equality policies can have a positive effect in preventing and countering corruption and, vice versa.

This report presents recommendations to boost the participation of women in trade through free trade agreements. Policymakers and trade negotiators will find a new toolkit to gauge gender responsiveness in their agreements. These lessons are based on a research assessment of 73 selected free trade agreements in force among 25 Commonwealth countries, and top-line recommendations and model clauses for countries to adapt. The recommendations include embedding gender provisions in the preamble, leveraging corporate social responsibility, using reservations, waivers and general exceptions, and strengthening monitoring and dispute settlement mechanisms.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, shrinking working hours, increased care burdens and heightened violence have exacerbated the challenges that women and girls face. Unless action is taken, by 2021 around 435 million women and girls will be living in extreme poverty, including 47 million pushed into poverty as a result of COVID-19. This publication from UN Women presents the latest evidence on the multiple impacts of the pandemic on women and girls, including how the crisis is affecting extreme poverty, employment, health, unpaid care and violence against women and girls. Policy action is urgently needed to protect women’s health and well-being, including ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health services. The response to COVID-19 must also take into account the risks borne by essential health workers, the majority of whom are women. The report calls for gender-responsive policies, including the introduction of economic support packages for vulnerable women, as well as long-term investments in social protection systems that reach all women and girls. Additionally, improving gender data collection and expanding research on the gendered impacts of COVID-19 will be vital to understand the pandemic’s impact on different groups of women and girls.

Gender disparities are a persistent form of inequality in every country. Despite remarkable progress in some areas, no country in the world—rich or poor—has achieved gender equality. All too often, women and girls are discriminated against in health, in education, at home and in the labour market—with negative repercussions for their freedoms. This is the time for a reality check. The commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+25) provides an opportunity to reassess the path to gender equality and adjust actions to close gender gaps. The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) measures how social beliefs obstruct gender equality in areas like politics, work, and education, and contains data from 75 countries, covering over 80 percent of the world’s population. According to the index, about half of the world’s men and women feel that men make better political leaders, and over 40 percent feel that men make better business executives and that men have more right to a job when jobs are scarce. 28 percent think it is justified for a man to beat his wife. The publication also includes the GSNI trends for 31 countries, representing 59 percent of the global population. The trends show that while in some countries there have been improvements, in others, attitudes appear to have worsened in recent years, signaling that progress cannot be taken for granted.

This 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 social protection and care policies that are included in the costing have enormous significance for families and broader society, and their implementation would have particularly important impacts for women, since they are over-represented among those without income security, they face specific life course contingencies, and they take on a highly disproportionate share of unpaid care work. Previous work studied different components of this package more in depth, often also providing projections for the future. The comparative advantage of the present study is that it looks at an integrated package of family-friendly services and transfers and estimates the costs for a large sample of countries (151 to 166, depending on the scenario). The costing shows that such a package is affordable in many countries. Depending on the scenario, median costs range between 4.6 and 10.1 per cent of GDP. Those countries that cannot finance the full package can initially afford at least some of its critical elements, such as health care or income support.