Ethiopia

The UN Women Ethiopia Country Office (ECO) has been working  as Country Office  since 2012 also covering the liaison office for African Union (AU) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) until the de-linking which took effect  since the beginning of 2022 . The country office’s strategy is collaborative partnerships and joint implementation to influence capacity and resources to impact large numbers of women and girls. ECO works in close partnership with the Government of Ethiopia (GoE), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), UN entities in Ethiopia and other partners. 

UN Women has triple mandate: normative, coordination and operational.  Under the normative work, the office ensures the GoE integrates global frameworks such as the SDGs within its development plans. Through the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs(MoWSA), it provides advisory and normative support on gender equality mainstreaming in various  socio-economic sectors  including evidence generation. The Country Office provides coordination and mainstreaming for more coherence on Gender Equality across the 27 members United Nations Country Team (UNCT) operational in Ethiopia.

The main framework that guides the socio-economic development in Ethiopia is the Ten-Year Perspective Development Plan - Ethiopia 2030: The Pathways to Prosperity (2020 – 2030) and related national sectoral policies and plans.  The country office’s thematic focus areas are grounded in UN Women’s global Strategic Plan (2021-2025) and aligned to major international and African regional development and gender commitments, including the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BDPfA) (1995); the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979); Africa’s Agenda 2063; the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) (2003); and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (SDGEA) (2004).

Under operation support to the Government, the main programmatic interventions are:

Women in Leadership and Governance to promote women’s leadership in decision making at all levels for federal, regional and sub-regional by creating enabling environment and building their capacities.

Women Economic Empowerment to address challenges that avert women, especially the poorest of the poor, from competently participating and contributing in the country’s socio-economic development and enhance their capacities to leverage from national and continental business opportunities.

Ending Violence against Women and Girls to ensure that women and girls live a life free from violence through provision of access to justice and protection services.

National planning and budgeting  to ensure that new and existing internationally and nationally agreed commitments on GEWE are adequately and effectively financed in Ethiopia by enabling the government to establish Gender Responsive National Planning and Budgeting system. UN Women Ethiopia country office is also exploring with the Government and Private Sector how the financing for gender equality could go beyond the tradition Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and include innovative financing mechanisms including  gender bonds, Gender Responsive Procurement and other emerging  financing solutions.

Coordination for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women to accelerate the progress on the implementation of laws, policies and commitments on gender equality and the empowerment of Women.

Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action Programme to strategically position gender equality across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus through capacity development of WLOs.