Championing Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in Uganda's Refugee Response.

As gaps remain in efforts to stem the tide of global economic crises, having fiscal policies in place to safeguard spending for women is essential. Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) can ensure a gender-equitable allocation of resources and expenditure tracking to promote gender equality. This briefing note provides information on the foundation established to determine entry points for this work, key partnerships, and plans to advance systemic financing for gender equality in the country.

The assessment focused on HCTs and Cluster Working Groups (CWGs) in recognition of the central role they play in planning and coordinating humanitarian responses. Survey findings showed that the overall knowledge of Gender integration in Humanitarian Action (GiHA) was average, with just over half of the HCTs and Clusters reporting a working knowledge and only one third (33 percent HCTs and 25 percent clusters) reporting comprehensive knowledge.

Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.

Key initiatives in the ESA KM Strategy (2022-2025) include sustaining the review and update of country gender equality profiles by all the 13 countries in the region, increasing momentum on the use of established KM systems and tools; institutional learning; quantitative and qualitative research and analyses on GEWE; capacity strengthening for R/M/COs on KM interventions; quality assurance processes of knowledge products; evidenced based advocacy and documentation and development and repackaging of knowledge products.

The guide has been informed by the draft global humanitarian response strategy and by some of the recommendations from the initial humanitarian response team training conducted in October and November 2020.

“HOW-TO-DO” TOOLKIT for the UNCT-SWAP Gender Equality SCORECARD - West and Central Africa region.

The Project Affirmative Procurement Reform in West Africa supports women economic empowerment through policy reforms, institutional strengthening of public sector institutions and capacity building of women-owned/-led businesses to access procurement opportunities in Senegal, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Mali. This newsletter is distributed every six months, covering the journey of the project implementation across the most important events, outcomes, perspectives and other relevant information on gender responsive procurement.

This policy brief highlights the main findings of four academic research papers on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda that were presented during a workshop organized by UN Women Ethiopia Country Office in December 2021. The findings focus on protection of women from conflict-related sexual violence; gender-sensitive recovery programs; role of women human rights defenderds in supporting the WPS agenda; and awareness of Members of Parliament on the agenda.

Administrative data collected by governments and service providers in their day-to-day business is an increasingly important source of official statistics. In the data revolution era, administrative data provides opportunities for timely analysis and public policy development, savings on data collection, and increased efficiency and scope using available data e.g., birth and employment records.

2021 marked the end of the latest UN Women Strategic Plan, and during the year UN Women’s West and Central Africa Regional Office (WCARO) and Country Offices/Non-Resident Agencies continued to strengthen a comprehensive set of global norms, policies, and standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women; help end all forms of violence against women and girls; foster women’s economic empowerment; encourage and support women to lead; facilitate gender mainstreaming; and support women’s participation in peacebuilding and resilience efforts. Throughout the year, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact West and Central Africa, and women in the region were particularly vulnerable to the crisis.

The policy brief aims to serve as an synthesizes and presents key findings from UN Women-led research; regional online surveys and; advocacy on. making the AfCFTA work for (young) women and (young) women-led businesses, both in the design and implementation of gender-responsive AfCFTA policy reforms and complementary measures, as well as in the soon-to-be negotiated AfCFTA Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade.

This study explains why it is important to integrate a gender perspective into assessments of all the SDGs, and also shows how to approach this task as a way to enhance gender mainstreaming across the 2030 Agenda.

UN Women Liberia Annual Report for 2021 highlights activities and results of the organisation’s interventions in supporting the Government of Liberia and civil society organisations (CSOs) to promote gender equality and advance the rights of women and girls on four main thematic areas, namely, Women’s Political Participation, Leadership and Gender-sensitive Governance Systems; Women’s Economic Empowerment; Ending Violence against Women and Girls; and Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Actions.

The report “Lessons Learned, Promising Practices, & Challenges to Overcome” provides first-hand experiences from the eight African countries implementing the Spotlight Initiative in ending violence against women and girls.

Innovations during COVID-19 by African Girls Who Code

This quarterly newsletter profiles UN Women Uganda activities and highlights voices of beneficiaries. The Q2 Newsletter covers the period of April to June 2022. Enjoy the read!

UN Women Liberia Annual Report for 2020 highlights the work that was accomplished by the country office in 2020 and documents success stories achieved by the organisation and its implementing partners.

Uganda has made gains in its socio-economic transformation, maintained peace and stability for over 3-decades and is on course to become an upper middle-income country by 2040. The Government of Uganda (GoU) is committed to the SDG 2030 Agenda as exemplified by the gross domestic product which doubled over the last 10-years, from $17.2 billion in 2010 to $34.4 billion in 2019. Literacy rates improved from 70% between 2012-2013 to 74% between 2016-2017, yet still literacy levels were higher for males than females. Uganda’s National Development Plan (NDP) III focuses on inclusive growth, human wellbeing and resilience, transformational and inclusive governance positions. The NDPIII is a convergence framework for the entire UN System to coherently contribute to the advancement of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) in Uganda with UN Women as a strategic partner on the path to transformation

The study covers Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda. It finds that NEET rates in ESA are above 40 percent for youth in the 20-24 years age bracket, that young women in the region are disproportionally affected by NEET status regardless of their age group, and that this status is more likely to become a permanent state for young women than for young men.