Management Response

: Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division
: 2022 - 2023 , Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division (HQ)
: Corporate Thematic Evaluation of UN Women’s Support to Women’s Political Participation: Insights from the Field
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Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division

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UN-Women expresses its appreciation for the Corporate Evaluation on UN-Women’s Contribution to Women’s Political Participation: Insights from the field, which assesses the entity’s cumulative contribution to women’s political participation (WPP), and results achieved during the UN-Women Strategic Plan 2018–2021 period, and additional insights beyond. The evaluation considers the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of UN-Women’s work on WPP with a focus on insights from the country level, based on document review and consultations with stakeholders, partner agencies and UN-Women staff. The evaluation arrives within the second year of UN-Women’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025, affording an opportunity to address its conclusions and recommendations in the new Strategic Plan’s implementation. The evaluation’s drafting also overlapped with the finalization of the Gender Equality Accelerator on WPP and a new global programme on women’s political participation, launched in March 2024, which in parallel address some of the recommendations in this report. In addition to those listed in the evaluation Report, UN-Women also wishes to acknowledge the support of the Political Participation Policy team throughout the evaluation process. UN-Women’s efforts to advance women’s political participation include promoting supportive legislative and institutional reforms; building the capacity of women political aspirants and leaders; monitoring, preventing and mitigating violence against women in politics; and encouraging social norms change to recognize women’s political leadership. UN-Women is also actively engaged in promoting women’s political participation through coordination and advocacy efforts across the UN system, including with the Inter-Agency Task Force on Temporary Special Measures and the Inter-Agency Coordination Mechanism on Electoral Assistance. UN-Women is pleased that the evaluation viewed UN-Women’s work well adapted to various country contexts, while remaining strategically focused on accelerators of WPP in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders across government, women’s networks, UN partners and civil society organizations to support the Entity’s initiatives related to women’s political participation. Overall, UN-Women’s efforts related to women’s political participation have generated progress in strengthening electoral frameworks and developing and sustaining a diverse cadre of women political leaders. This impact is largely due to sustained investments in legal reforms, advocacy and strengthening of women’s skills as office holders and leaders and increasing capacities at all stages of their path into politics. UN-Women’s country-level programmes have also received useful and timely support from headquarters and several Regional Offices on matters related to women’s political participation. Nevertheless, UN-Women continues to encounter challenges to advancing women’s political participation and the evaluation presents recommendations that the Entity could consider, including strengthening its advocacy, convening and gender mainstreaming roles in political participation programming at country level, strengthening guidance on effectively mainstreaming considerations of leave no one behind and improving measurement of key results to better contextualize and demonstrate UN-Women’s impact. As UN-Women strives to enhance its structure, capacity, and capability to impact on the lives of women and girls who are left behind, it takes note of the challenges cited in the evaluation and will seek to address them. These considerations, and the evaluation’s recommendations and observations, will inform UN-Women’s WPP work and assessment of its impact on women’s lives around the world. The management response refers to the entire evaluation and notes that some recommendations will have resource implications.

: Approved
Recommendation: Recommendation 1 UN-Women should continue to address key barriers to women’s political participation, while including a focus on persistent constraints and forms of backlash such as violence against women in politics
Management Response: MANAGEMENT RESPONSE UN-Women welcomes the recommendation to continue addressing key longstanding barriers to women’s political participation, while focusing on backlash and violence against women in politics, noting this was a key priority in the Strategic Plan 2018-2021. This work supports intergovernmental and UN coordination mandates, but notably prioritizes our operation mandate through country offices’ programmes to mitigate VAWP through advocating for legislative and policy reforms; research and data collection; support for monitoring and prevention; capacity-building of women in politics and national partners including in the security sector and the judiciary; advocacy with women’s organizations; and strengthening complaints and reporting mechanisms. These initiatives continue to be prioritized under outcome 5 of the current Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and are foundational in the framework in Gender Equality Accelerator 1. UN-Women will continue expanding comparative prevalence data on VAWP through tailored surveys at national level, ensuring consistency with existing international statistical guidelines to build a global repository of statistically reliable and comparable data. UN-Women is also preparing relevant guidance, including on National Gender Observatories and VAWP monitoring, which will aid Regional and Country Offices, other UN agencies, and development partners in addressing this issue. UN-Women has led UN system-wide coordination and awareness-raising among senior UN leadership about the impacts of VAWP, successfully advocating for the adoption of UN System Key Messages on VAWP endorsed in the Secretary-General’s Executive Committee. UN-Women will continue to advocate for use of the Key Messages on VAWP by senior UN officials with national partners at country level, as well as more closely within UN-Women through global advocacy, corporate messaging and communications materials. In response to ongoing the backlash, in 2024 and beyond, UN-Women is prioritizing combatting technology facilitated gender-based violence, with coordinated action between WPP and Ending Violence against Women teams, with the aim of strengthening partnerships with relevant organizations to advocate on the issue and develop comprehensive programme responses, including online training programmes such as Social Media Self Defence trainings. Some regional offices are preparing e-training modules on cyber-security and online safety for women in public life including women activists, human rights defenders, and journalists. UN-Women will also strengthen capacity building of women leaders to address enduring challenges they face in their political roles. Building the successful candidate training manual which was widely rolled out at country level in all regions in the evaluation period under review, UN-Women is developing a new complementary curriculum to help capacitate and empower newly women leaders including to address VAWP and TFGBV.
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Description: UN-Women should continue to address key barriers to women’s political participation, while including a focus on persistent constraints and forms of backlash such as violence against women in politics
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy, Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination, Normative Support, Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Relevance, Impact, Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Country offices strengthen implementation of evidence-based programming to prevent, monitor and mitigate VAWP, with increased attention to TFGBV Country Offices and supported by ROs and Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2025/12 Completed Informed by knowledge products and tools for country implementation developed by UN Women and UN partners; UN Women Cos have continued prioritizing programming on addressing VAWP with increasing attention to TFGBV. In 2024, UN Women has reached a cumulative result of 254 initiatives to address violence against women in politics in over 50 countries– ranging from legislative and policy reform to incident monitoring, to police training. Examples in 2024 and 2025 include: In Central African Republic, and ahead of the 2025 local elections, UN Women in partnership with MINUSCA, UN Police and the Ministry of Internal Security, is supporting implementing the “hotline 1325” for VAWE response, established in 2020 ahead of the electoral process with UN Women’s support, and used primarily by women experiencing any form of VAWP. In Iraq, during the October 2024 Kurdistan Regional parliamentary election, UN-Women partnered with the High Council for Women and Development and provided technical and financial support which enabled establishing coordination mechanisms among government bodies, civil society, and religious institutions to strengthened protection mechanisms for women in politics. These included a governmental task force, bringing together key ministries, including the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice, ensuring a coordinated response to violence against women in elections including through two hotlines providing a direct channel for women candidates and voters to report cases. In Tanzania, ahead of the 2025 election, UN Women rolled-out trainings on VAWP adapting the UN Women global VAWP modules, in collaboration with the University of Dar es Salaam and the UN Women ESARO. The skills and knowledge of 230 key stakeholders comprising of 150 members of the Tanzania Police Force and 80 journalists were strengthened on Violence Against Women in Politics. The initiative enabled members of the Tanzania Police Force to gain skills to effectively recognize, prevent, and respond to violence against women in political spaces and the media to identify and report on VAWP, challenge harmful gender stereotypes, and promote fair and positive representation of women in political context. In the Americas and the Caribbean Region, during 2025, 5 countries enhanced institutional mechanisms to address violence against women in politics in 5 countries (Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Honduras), including the adoption of a 1 new specific law (COL) and of a national protocol to address VAWP (HON). In Ecuador a National Plan to Prevent VAWP was adopted with the technical support of UNDP and UN Women, and in Guatemala a bill on VAWP was developed and presented in the Congress.
In coordination with EVAW section, WPP team strengthens linkages in the increasing area of TFGBV Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2024/09 Completed In collaboration with UN Women’s Ending Violence Against Women team, UN Women Leadership and Decision-Making section is developing a Letter of Collaboration with Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. This partnership aims to accelerate joint efforts to strengthen UN Women’s interventions on TFGBV. On the margins of UNGA79, UN Women’s WPP and EVAW global teams partnered with international organizations, governments and stakeholders to co-host several events on TFGB and inclusive decision-making: including: i) “Securing Gains and Resisting Backlash: Responding to the Urgent Needs of Women and Feminist Political Leaders”, jointly with Colmena Fund, the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and Open Society Foundations; ii) “Women LEAD in Action –Addressing Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence to Strengthen Women’s Political Participation and Leadership” hosted by the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI) at UN Women; and “Promising Practices to Prevent Online Violence Against Women in Public and Political Life” with Apolitical Foundation, the Accelerator to Prevent GBV, and the Australia’s eSafety Commissioner of Australia. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the WPP and EVAW teams worked together on the TFGBV agenda. An Interamerican Model Law on TFGBV was recently launched by OAS in December 2025 and counted with UN Women support. A $2Million funded project by Spain was jointly designed by EVAW and WPP and will also address digital violence. Under WYDE Women’s Leadership initiative, collaboration with EVAW global team as part of the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. In 2024 UN Women produced a WYDE | Women’s Leadership social media campaign focusing specifically on the pressing issue of violence against women in politics. The campaign received over 4,000 views on UN Women’s X account. The package was used in complementarity with the UN Women corporate package for the 16 days of activism, and spotlighted key data and insights on the barriers women face in politics. In 2025, the WYDE social media campaign focused on TFGBV with a series of short videos on VAWP online launched during the 16 Days of Activism against VAWG campaign; as a result of the WYDE LAC Regional Convening
Country offices to strengthen capacity building of women in public life, including through roll out of VAWP and TFGBV prevention modules, and e-training on cyber security Country Offices and Supported by ROs and Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2025/12 Completed Since the presentation of the evaluation results, UN Women Cos have continued supporting capacity building initiatives for aspiring women leaders, candidates and office holders. In 2024 over 3,000 women participated in UN Women trainings and across regions; and their political leadership and skills were enhanced in campaign planning, communications, messaging, constituency outreach, and networking. In 2024, the new induction training course for women office holders at national and local levels was finalised and piloted in Albania, followed by additional pilots and national workshops in 2025 (incl. Guyana, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania. On VAWP and TFGBV in April 2025, UN Women convened a global Community of Practice webinar to disseminate training tools on VAWE developed for electoral process stakeholders. The tools build on UN Women’s global research, data, programming, and policy expertise on VAWP prevention, monitoring, mitigation, and response. To date, the training has been piloted in eight Country and Regional Offices. In Latin America and the Caribbean the second edition of the one-and-a-half-month virtual course “The Role of Electoral Bodies in Preventing and Mitigating Violence against Women in Politics, as in managing and auditing political financing in Latin America and the Caribbean” was rolled out as part of the continued partnership with the Interamerican Institute of Human Rights and its Center for Electoral Promotion and Assistance, reaching over 80 electoral authorities and officers from 14 countries, and resulting in enhanced capacities of EMBs across the region on prevention and mitigation of VAWE. Since the presentation of the evaluation results, UN Women Cos have continued supporting capacity building initiatives for aspiring women leaders, candidates and office holders. In 2024 over 3,000 women participated in UN Women trainings and across regions; and their political leadership and skills were enhanced in campaign planning, communications, messaging, constituency outreach, and networking. In 2024, the new induction training course for women office holders at national and local levels was finalised and piloted in Albania, followed by additional pilots and national workshops in 2025 (incl. Guyana, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania. On VAWP and TFGBV in April 2025, UN Women convened a global Community of Practice webinar to disseminate training tools on VAWE developed for electoral process stakeholders. The tools build on UN Women’s global research, data, programming, and policy expertise on VAWP prevention, monitoring, mitigation, and response. To date, the training has been piloted in eight Country and Regional Offices. In Latin America and the Caribbean the second edition of the one-and-a-half-month virtual course “The Role of Electoral Bodies in Preventing and Mitigating Violence against Women in Politics, as in managing and auditing political financing in Latin America and the Caribbean” was rolled out as part of the continued partnership with the Interamerican Institute of Human Rights and its Center for Electoral Promotion and Assistance, reaching over 80 electoral authorities and officers from 14 countries, and resulting in enhanced capacities of EMBs across the region on prevention and mitigation of VAWE. In East and Southern Africa Region, UN Women enhanced knowledge and awareness on electoral arrangements to prevent and mitigate VAWP amongst electoral officials from 12 SADC countries and 88 lawyers from 11 countries through training sessions provided during the Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC Countries; and a workshop session facilitated during the SADC Lawyers’ Association (SADC LA) general meeting and conference, held in Zambia. Under the WYDE initiative in 2024 377 women leaders enhanced their political skills, analytical abilities and technical knowledge of through women’s networks and platforms to promote equal participation. This included intergenerational mentorship exchanges and leadership academies, which built the capacity of women politicians, activists, mayors, and members of parliament. In 2025, regional convenings have been organized in Istanbul, Fiji and Panama, bringing together young women, parliamentarians, civil society representatives, and youth leaders from the Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean Regions. These dialogues underscored the urgency in tackling structural barriers such as social norms and violence against women in politics, which came during a uniquely challenging context of financial uncertainty for many CSOs and important political moments in countries across each region.
Country and Regional offices continue to support roll out of national prevalence surveys on VAWP COs/ROs/ Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2025/12 Completed To date, technical assistance has been provided to 13 UN Women country and regional offices that implemented candidate surveys or office holder surveys to measure violence against women in politics (VAWP). Surveys supported in 2024-2025 include: Argentina, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kyrgyz Republic, Mexico, Republic of Moldova, and Uruguay. The resulting reports provide comprehensive information on the legal and policy frameworks of countries, prevalence of violence, who are the women most often experiencing violences, who are the perpetrators, and reporting and help seeking behaviors. They also provide a series of recommendations for addressing VAWP in the country contexts. The lessons learned informed the development of an implementation guidance, ready for sharing in 2026, enabling the support for all regional and country offices to undertake such studies.
Develop knowledge on financial resources barriers and opportunities for funding women in politics Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2025/12 Completed In 2024 with support of the HQ team through the SPF programme, the Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean finalised and launched the first regional study on gender-responsive financing of political parties and electoral campaigns, which incorporates input received during workshops with expert groups in both academic and electoral fields.
Induction training course for women office holders addresses VAWP and TFGBV and implemented Governance and Participation Section/PPID supported by ROs 2025/12 Completed A specialized module on violence against women in politics, with a focus on digital self-defence, was integrated into two newly developed global gender-sensitive legislation induction courses—one for women Members of Parliament and one for women local councilors, rolled out in six countries. As a result, over 80 women politicians strengthened their knowledge and practical skills to respond to VAWP online and offline. Additionally, more than 40 facilitators completed Training of Trainers, strengthening their capacities to prevent violence against women in politics and embed inclusive, gender-sensitive leadership practices at national and local levels.
Recommendation: Recommendation 2 UN-Women should strengthen its advocacy and convening role by providing further guidance on navigating and communicating with diverse coalitions of partners in support of women’s political participation.
Management Response: UN-Women agrees with this recommendation and the need to strengthen advocacy and communications with diverse partners in support of women’s political participation. While noting that UN-Women does already work with range of stakeholders at country and regional level, there is scope to strengthen advocacy with a broader range of partners, such as multi-party international foundations, parliamentary groups, local governments and associations, youth and disabled groups, and political parties and political party registrars, as appropriate. UN-Women’s recently launched programme within the European Union’s Women and Youth in Democracy Initiative (WYDE) will also help foster networks among diverse women leaders, feminists, and young women in response to this recommendation. The programme will support the implementation of the Gender Equality Forum (GEF) Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership (AC6), through financial support to young women’s organizations and feminist networks, and enhance synergies between women’s rights movements, member states, decision-makers, the international community, the media, and other key actors to strengthen coalition building, advocacy, and campaigning to promote WPP. To support advocacy for a key normative priority - the new CEDAW General Recommendation No 40 focused on parity between women and men in decision making systems - to be adopted in October 2024, and the implementation of the WYDE Programme, UN-Women will develop communications and advocacy plans that will serve to inform policy-oriented advocacy, UN programming at regional and country levels and support donor outreach and UN coordination.
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Description: UN-Women should strengthen its advocacy and convening role by providing further guidance on navigating and communicating with diverse coalitions of partners in support of women’s political participation.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Capacity development, Advocacy, South-South cooperation
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination, Partnership, Normative Support, Operational activities, Culture of results/RBM
UNEG Criteria: Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Develop communications and advocacy plan on WPP, including with UN and external partners, and diverse stakeholders. Comms, Governance and Participation Section/PPID, ROs 2025/12 Overdue-Initiated Communications and advocacy on women’s political participation and leadership constitute a standalone objective of the WYDE | Women’s Leadership initiative. Since its launch in 2024, WYDE has been implementing its internal communication and advocacy plan, notably by producing and rolling out social media campaigns focusing on women’s leadership, women’s political participation and representation on the occasion of specific days and global campaigns, such as the 16 days of activism, Human Rights Day, International Democracy Day, International Parliamentary Day, Europe Day and International Women’s Day. As part of its activities, WYDE is planning the rollout of a Regional Advocacy Initiative aiming to challenge and shift harmful social norms and narratives to empower women, including young women, to see politics and places of decision-making as their rightful space; and to mobilize decision-makers and political institutions to take concrete actions that advance women’s equal and meaningful participation in political life. The Advocacy Initiative will be targeting the Africa region in priority and the Pacific region. Finally, WYDE | Women’s Leadership Grantees are also working across local, national, and regional levels, to create feminist platforms for policy and advocacy engagement, while reshaping perceptions of women in leadership roles. A cross-cutting focus of all grantee’s projects is shifting social norms pertaining to women’s leadership and decision-making. Through public campaigns, media advocacy, training, and youth-led mobilization, grantees are leveraging dialogue and innovation to challenge gender stereotypes, prevent violence against women in politics, and combat disinformation In 2026, the LDM Section will coordinate with the newly stablished Comms and Advocacy Division to upscale advocacy efforts with the aim to develop an advocacy plan.
Strengthen advocacy with a broader range of national partners, such as multi-party international foundations, youth and disabled groups, local governments and associations, and political parties and political party registrars, as appropriate Country Offices/ supported by ROs, Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2025/12 Completed WYDE | Women’s Leadership implemented by UN Women (lead partner), the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and as part of the EU Women and Youth Democratic Engagement initiative (WYDE), is raising the bar in terms of delivering to increase women’s political leadership with a coordinated and well-structured approach. Leveraging and building partnerships is a key component of the approach which builds on existing initiatives and convening partners including national and regional stakeholders, international organizations, civil society groups and other partners to achieve a greater collaborative impact and foster more inclusive political institutions. For example, UCLG works through its network of thousands of locally elected representatives to understand key needs and to foster the role of women in local and regional governments within the broader gender equality agenda. UCLG provides access to the global community of locally elected officials, a key constituency to foster intergenerational dialogues, strengthen leadership capacities, and support the articulation of the Feminist Municipality Movement — promoting inclusive, feminist policymaking from local to global levels and enhancing the visibility of women leaders of all ages. International IDEA’s regional/sub-regional and national level partners provide access to reinforce partnerships to promote transformative gender social norms, attitudes, and behaviors which are conducive to enhancing women’s political participation and representation in public life, leadership and decision making at all levels. IPU represents the global parliamentary community and provides access to its network of women parliamentarians in its work to create gender-sensitive parliaments and design tools to address violence against women in parliament. UN Women has actively partner with and strengthens women’s organizations and networks to support the implementation of commitments made by the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership including by awarding eight grants through a newly established grant-making mechanism. Civil society and women’s rights organization commitment makers under the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership represent a cross-cutting partnership for WYDE | Women’s Leadership, taking active roles in consultations with parliamentarians and locally elected leaders and implementing projects funded under the initiative. UN Women, acting as the WYDE | Women’s Leadership secretariat, is also advancing the work through cross-cutting engagement across the WYDE components, including through hosting the Strategic Steering Committee for WYDE in February 2025. In addition, the secretariat participates in the WYDE communications task force and contributes to briefings for other WYDE components, such as with the Youth Cohort. These connections help foster a united and cohesive approach across the entire WYDE ecosystem. Examples of partners: • Young Women of Africa Network (YWAN) - links to women in politics/activists and young women across Africa from Southern Africa to Sahel. • Women in Leadership Advancement Network (WILAN) – collaboration on promoting women’s political participation and representation at national, regional and global levels, partner in the Expert Group on developing the social norms framework. • Africa Women Journalism Project – collaboration on media and gender responsive reporting plus data driven reporting. • African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) – Pan African women’s rights organisation on working with women politicians and media practitioners in Sub-Saharan Africa. • Tanzania Enlightenment Development Innovations (TEDI) – facilitator on digital literacy for women and girls which is key in the implementation of the academies, dialogues and development of the media toolkit. • African Women Leaders Network (AWLN) – networking facilitator on intergenerational work amongst different generations of women politicians with continental outreach. • Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) – collaboration on expertise on working with youth in politics through dialogues and democracy schools. • Network of Locally Elected Women from Africa (REFELA) • Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED) – track record of working on political rights • Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare (Malawi) - strategic support is key for multiplier effects at government level on transformative political participation policy framework in the in the Southern Africa region. • Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) – Pan African organisation working closely with young women and girls, FAWE has pioneered development of school curriculums on leadership which aligns with the foundation of the young women empowerment academy curriculum. • Center for Gender and Politics CGAP4 – knowledge sharing and cross-posting across social media platforms to support global outreach • Youth Democracy Cohort (YDC) - Collaboration on youth empowerment agenda especially young women in politics. In addition, CSOs/WROs funded under WYDE 1st round of grant making: DAR for Peace and Prosperity; Gender at Work (GAWIT); Feminist Cities (CISCSA); Organization for Women and Children of Liberia; Bridge for Social Services (BRISS); Access Planet Nepal (APO); Women, Environment and Youth Development Initiative (WOYODEV) In 2024, UN Women expanded its global media coverage on WPP. The global work on production of research and data on WPP has positioned UN Women at the global lead in this area enabling partnerships building. UN-Women’s global comparable data on women in executive ministerial positions, is now used in global comparative analysis and gender equality indices, like the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report and is being used by leading global media outlets. This year, UN Women collaborated with the Washington Post to do a headline story on women heads of states and government with interactive graphics; and the BBC on the story “Growth of women in power grinds to near-halt in a mega-election year.
Showcase good practices of UN coordination on political participation through regional and global COPs and peer to peer exchanges. ROs and Governance and Participation Section/PPID and supported by COs 2025/12 Completed Regional and global CoPs remained active and regularly distributed newsletters and broadcasts, and updated Intranet sites, helping increase communication opportunities for staff worldwide and promote more cross-regional exchanges on UN Coordination programmes on WPP.
Develop advocacy plan to support multi-partner advocacy of CEDAW GR 40 Governance and Participation Section/PPID with COs' support 2025/12 Completed Following the support provided to the CEDAW Committee on the elaboration of its General Recommendation No. 40 on the equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems; during 2025, UN Women has prioritized the dissemination and implementation of this latest global normative development, in key regional and global multilateral fora. For example, General Recommendation No40 informed the discussions of the XVI Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbea,1 and its outcome document, the Tlatelolco Commitment, which underscores the imperative of guaranteeing women’s equal representation in decision-making through legislative, electoral, and temporary special measures, while promoting their full participation in strategic sectors, political life, and peace processes. In East and Southern Africa continued technical support to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) led to the finalization and validation of the SADC Framework for Achieving Gender Parity in Political and Decision-Making Positions (2025-2035) by 15 SADC Member States, alongside key representatives from government ministries, civil society organizations, and regional stakeholders. Under the WYDE-Women and Youth Democratic Engagement initiative, GR 40 has been systematically disseminated as a foundational principle across diverse platforms and strategic initiatives, including intergenerational dialogues on young women’s political participation in Istanbul and Fiji; and integrated into UN Women and partner-led engagements during UNGA and CSW.
Implementation of WYDE programme and development of SOPs for disbursement of funds to AC6 grantees Governance and Participation Section/PPID with ROs' support 2026/12 Completed WYDE | Women’s Leadership made significant strides in empowering women leaders and fostering a stronger, more inclusive women’s movement globally. WYDE | Women’ Leadership awarded over $981,000 in grants to eight women’s rights organizations across four regions (Africa, Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean), to advance the goals of the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership, through building the capacities of women leaders, engage in mentorship, transform social norms and foster the women’s movement while ensuring an intersectional approach. These organizations focus on empowering young women towards increased political participation, including those from internally displaced populations, women with disabilities, Indigenous and (lesbian, bisexual and transgender) LBT women, and Dalit women, among others. A second CoP was launched in October 2025 This funding, through this Call for Proposals of approximately USD $1,000,000, will directly support women’s organizations and youth movements which are advancing the AC6’s targets to support women and girls’ meaningful participation, leadership, and decision-making power.
Recommendation: Recommendation 3 UN-Women should aim to develop strategic and long-term programmes to support women’s political participation at the country level.
Management Response: UN-Women agrees with the recommendation that country offices would benefit from longer-term, strategic planning beyond election cycles, while noting that UN-Women’s strategic plan 2018-2021 provided the framework for country offices to develop multi-year programmes on WPP through their Strategic Notes. Additionally, the roll out of the Flagship Programme Initiative on WPP (FPI 1) encouraged country offices to design multi-stakeholder, multi-year programmes to achieve sustainable changes at scale. It is important to note that in many instances, country offices, often with limited staff resources, were better able to capitalize on opportunistic non-core funding/multi-donor basket funds that are established to support UN joint programming ahead of electoral processes in the short term, notably through UNDP and the Peace Building Fund , which may have supported the perception that COs’ programmes are mostly focused on the short-term election cycle. Following good practices related to the FPI implementation, the subsequent Gender Equality Accelerator 1 on WPP serves as the corporate planning tool for resource mobilization, with its four outcome areas based on the need for longer term programming approaches. To strengthen UN-Women’s coordination role on gender mainstreaming across UN programming on political participation, UN-Women will identify good practices at country level, such as dedicated gender theme groups, elections working groups, electoral needs assessments and integration of gender mainstreaming in UNCT planning documents on governance; and disseminate through regional and global COPs and peer to peer exchanges for replication at country level.
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Description: UN-Women should aim to develop strategic and long-term programmes to support women’s political participation at the country level.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy, Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination, Operational activities, Culture of results/RBM, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Country offices adopt long term programming approaches to WPP in Strategic Notes, project documents and joint programmes in alignment with the GEA 1 results framework, with socialization supported by PPID COs and ROs Supported by Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2025/12 Completed PPID and the LDM Section have been supported regional and country offices through internal Strategic Dialogues oy Offices developing their new Strategic Notes to ensure alignment with the new SP cross thematic Outcomes and related indicators as well as the Programming Framework/GEA1 Women Lead. The HQ thematic team ensured substantive inputs to Cos thematic project documents (including UN joint programme documents) reflect key corporate indicators to measure contribution to UN Women’s Strategic Plan.
Regional offices compile and showcase good practices on long-term fundraising efforts, and based on inputs develop regional planning documents based to assist with long-term fundraising efforts with donors Cos Ros Supported by Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2024/12 Completed The Americas and the Caribbean Region compiled good practices on strategic and long-term programming from Country and Regional Offices, including initiatives such as the establishment of coordination platforms to sustain joint advocacy and collaboration on inclusive electoral reforms. These practices from Country and Regional Offices were disseminated through a global newsletter to members of the Community of Practice, supporting institutional learning and the sustainability of reforms. Resource mobilisation milestones supported include" AECID - Multi-country project aimed at promoting WPP, especially focused on indigenous women, in Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador and Guatemala (to be implemented along 2026-27 (Ellas+); AECID - Project in Haiti to support WPP during the electoral process (Ellas+); PBF initiative in Haiti; EURO-ELECT-H - EU funded joint project (UNDP-UN Women) in Honduras focused on WPP during electoral year; Regional Project with the Spanish Ministry of Equality - Focused on EVAW but with a specific component on VAWP (2M over 2026-2027), with specific focus on Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador and Colombia. The LDM Section provided nearly 2 US$ million catalytic funding to 19 countries with over 3.2 million US$ in donor funding leveraged by country offices and multi-donor elections basket funds managed by UNDP and/or UN Missions
Showcase good practices of gender mainstreaming in UN programming on political participation through regional and global COPs and peer to peer exchanges. Governance and Participation Section/PPID, ROs, COs 2025/12 Completed Global and Regional Communities of Practice (COP) on WPP. regularly distributing newsletters and broadcasts, an updated Intranet sites, helping increase communication opportunities for staff worldwide and promoted more cross-regional exchanges good practices of gender mainstreaming in UN programming on political participation
Recommendation: Recommendation 4 UN-Women should strengthen guidance on effectively mainstreaming considerations of leave no one behind into women’s political participation, particularly as programmes scale and work with new partnerships for social norms change.
Management Response: UN-Women agrees with this recommendation and the need to strengthen guidance to effectively mainstream leave no one behind considerations into WPP programming, while observing the centrality of LNOB principles in the previous and current strategic plans and GEA 1, providing the basis for programme and monitoring support to women in all their diversity. To address this recommendation, UN-Women will identify and codify good practices and lessons learned on effective programming integrating intersectionality and LNOB principles to assist country offices with evidence-based guidance to advance their work in this area. Regarding incorporation of LNOB principles in training initiatives, UN-Women has produced an addendum to its Political Leadership and Campaign Curriculum manual to include a ‘companion guide for inclusive training,’ providing guidance on building the campaign skills of women with disabilities, LGBTIQ, young and older women, rural and Indigenous women, mothers and single women, and women belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. UN-Women will strengthen implementation of the guidance offered on planning inclusive training events, as well as candidate-specific guidance on running an inclusive campaign, at country level. The principles contained in the guide are easily adaptable to inform country programmes and advocacy initiatives. Some regions have developed dedicated training tools for youth, men and women with disabilities, and these initiatives will be shared among regions through the global COP. Regarding social norms change, the Gender Equality Accelerator on WPP includes a dedicated outcome 3: “Both men and women adopt attitudes, norms and practices that advance gender equality and promote the perception of women as legitimate and effective political leaders,” aligned with the Strategic Plan (2022-2025) systemic Outcome 3, and which provides the corporate framework to transform harmful stereotypes and discriminatory norms against women and girls across sectors. As part of the design of the new WYDE global programme on WPP, a key activity will be the development of a common global definition and understanding of harmful social norms and manifestations that hamper women’s political participation and identify key levers to mitigate them. This will include convening expert meetings and structured dialogues to define the specific social norms hampering WPP to frame the overall programming efforts, training tools and development of guidance for different stakeholders at regional and country level.
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Description: UN-Women should strengthen guidance on effectively mainstreaming considerations of leave no one behind into women’s political participation, particularly as programmes scale and work with new partnerships for social norms change.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy, Capacity development, Promoting inclusiveness/Leaving no one behind, Knowledge management, Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: UN Coordination, Partnership, Operational activities, Organizational efficiency, Youth engagement, Engaging men and boys
UNEG Criteria: Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Codify good practices on integrating LNOB principles into WPP programming at country level and disseminate through Community of Practice webinars and knowledge products COs ROs Supported by Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2025/03 Completed An intentional intersectional approach to leave no one behind is being implemented under the WYDE | Women's Leadership Programme through providing capacity development and leadership training to women with disabilities, indigenous, IDP and other marginalized women through its funding of CSO organizations under WYDE. In addition, UN Women and WYDE partners include an intersectional approach in trainings and academies through actively ensuring the participation of women leaders from diverse backgrounds. For instance, IPU is actively working on promoting diverse representation in parliaments. Also, through the Intergenerational Regional Dialogues WYDE is ensuring diversity in participation including participants living with a disability, young women in politics, Indigenous leaders, amongst others while also including intersectionality as a key topic during the dialogues. On data and statistics data work an intersectional perspective has also been applied to new guidance on measuring participation in political and public affairs developed by UN Women in partnership with UNDP and the Praia Group on Governance Statistics, in two ways. First, the guidance ensures that data produced and reported globally by National Statistical Offices can be disaggregated by groups of women and men in different walks of life as determined by their age, disability status, education, migration status, migration status, ethnic group etc. Second, the guidance recommends data collection on accessibility (due to disability, health, old age, remote living) as potential obstacles to participation in political and public affairs. The new guidance has been finalized and will be disseminated in the first quarter of 2026. UN Women systematically compiled good practices from Country and Regional Offices on integrating the LNOB principle into WPP programming. These practices, such as advocacy efforts to amplify the voices of marginalized groups, were disseminated through global newsletters to members of the Community of Practice, fostering cross-regional/country knowledge exchange and strengthening LNOB integration across offices. The LNOB principle has been fully integrated into two newly developed global gender-sensitive legislative induction courses—one targeting women Members of Parliament and one for women local councilors. These courses have been rolled out in six countries, strengthening inclusive legislative leadership at both national and local levels. The regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean (ACRO) has been updating the Atenea's Parity Index, a joint initiative with UNDP and Intersectional IDEA aimed at promoting and following up advances towards parity in decision-making in Latin America. A new specific focus on intersectionality was included, aiming at promoting national follow up on institutional efforts to promote more inclusive decision-making spaces. ACRO is advising the Gender Equality Observatory of the Global Network of Electoral Justice in developing a specific knowledge product aimed at promoting the inclusion of an intersectional perspective into electoral justice, based on existing jurisprudence and international/regional standards. The evaluation of ACRO strategic note 2023-2025 highlights the Atenea-FLACSO's Virtual Platform for Political Training as a good example of initiative with intersectional approach, having promoted the strengthening of political leaderships from a LNOB perspective. The regional CoP hosted a session dedicated to share COs' experiences with small grants, promoting the leadership on WPP agenda of community-based CSOs (in Mexico with SPFIII support), with LNOB perspective.
Strengthen country level implementation of the companion guide for inclusive training for women candidates and leaders, especially those left furthest behind Cos and Governance and Participation Section/PPID with ROs' support 2025/12 Completed The Companion Guide on Inclusive Campaigning, was launched. An addendum to its Political Leadership and Campaign Curriculum, it provides guidance on building the campaign skills of women with disabilities, LGBTIQ, young and older women, rural and Indigenous women, mothers and single women, and women belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. The principles contained in the guide are easily adaptable to inform inclusive training events, country programmes and advocacy initiatives; and have informed inclusive training events, country programmes and advocacy initiatives; and the regional consultations on the CEDAW GR40
Convene global expert group meeting and structured dialogues to define the specific social norms hampering WPP, and how they impact on women’s participation in practice, to frame key messages and inform advocacy Governance and Participation Section/PPID with ROs' support 2024/12 Completed To make concrete strides in advancing women’s political participation and representation, UN Women convened an expert group meeting which identified social norms limiting women’s full political participation and representation, such as the pervasive notion of politics being perceived as a male domain. The meeting examined how social norms implicated in limiting women’s full participation and representation in politics and public life are context and location specific, yet are rooted in similar realities, and can be dismantled. Experts identified social norms which hinder women’s full political participation including the construction of politics as a male domain and of women as homemakers and caregivers. These are entangled with other norms such as those underlying patriarchal ideas. Over two days, feminist scholars, policymakers, activists, and practitioners joined together to chart a path forward for transforming social norms towards ensuring women’s full and effective political participation (read UN Women article on Capacity4Dev). Further, the meeting fostered discussion on sustainable changes in different contexts, rooted in examples of current frameworks of understanding social norms change such as those from UN Women and from the European Commission’s working group on gender transformative approaches. Key messages discussed during the meeting will drive the work on transforming social norms across WYDE | Women’s Leadership continued implementation.
Develop training tools and guidance on social norms change for implementation at regional and country level through programming interventions. Governance and Participation Section/PPID, ROs Supported by CO 2025/12 Completed Using experts’ interviews collected during the expert group meeting on social norms, an educational video on social norms was produced and widely used for WYDE activities (including by partners, beyond WYDE Women’s Leadership). Other UN Women colleagues have used the video for their activities (for instance in the Pacific). Finally, this knowledge was consolidated into a Social Norms Strategy focusing on women’s leadership and decision-making and circulated with WYDE partners as guidance to ensure alignment on transforming social norms. WYDE | Women’s Leadership partners are also producing tools on social norms change: International IDEA is producing a Briefs Series focusing as outcome from its Young Women’s Leadership Academies, IPU is hosting regular Empowerment Briefings with Members of Parliaments including on social norms change and is planning the production of a tool for MPs; UCLG is planning the production of tools dedicated to locally elected women leaders.
Recommendation: Recommendation 5 UN-Women should enhance measurement of key results on women’s political participation to better contextualize and demonstrate the impact of its work at country level.
Management Response: UN-Women agrees with this recommendation and the need to enhance measurement of key results on women’s political participation to better contextualize and demonstrate the impact of its work at country level. UN-Women has already started strengthening impact reporting as required by the Strategic Partnership Framework (SPF) global programme reporting requirements. This has included a fulsome review and reflection on impact level results, achievements and lessons learned over a 10-year period of implementation of the WPP programme, produced in a report. UN-Women will strongly encourage country and regional offices replication to showcase long-term results achieved and document lessons learned for sharing across regions and the organization, including though internal capacity building sessions. In terms of enhancing results reporting, the UN-Women Strategic Plan Mid Term Review process has afforded an opportunity to adjust Strategic Plan Output indicator 0.1.f to streamline measurement of enhanced capacities of national and local legislatures, ministries and electoral management bodies to design and implement strategies and policies that promote WPP. This will strengthen long-term monitoring on key areas highlighted by this evaluation.
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Description: UN-Women should enhance measurement of key results on women’s political participation to better contextualize and demonstrate the impact of its work at country level.
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Oversight/governance, Capacity development, Knowledge management, Internal coordination and communication, Evidence, Data and statistics, Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities, Organizational efficiency
UNEG Criteria: Efficiency, Relevance, Sustainability, Impact, Human Rights, Gender equality
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Develop guidance that can be used for rapid impact assessments on WPP at country level Governance and Participation Section/PPID, ROs Supported by COs 2025/12 Completed UN Women has developed draft global guidance on National Gender Observatories for Women’s Political Participation, strengthening systematic, data-driven accountability for gender equality. These observatories generate actionable evidence on key gender-related issues, including VAWP. Drawing on experiences in over 30 countries across five regions, the guidance provides practical, field-oriented support for establishing and sustaining observatories and will be made widely accessible across the organization to inspire innovation and advance women’s political rights globally.
Undertake quality impact assessments on WPP programming at country level and share widely for knowledge sharing and donor outreach Cos and Ros Supported by: Governance and Participation Section/PPID 2025/12 Completed Strategic Plan Deep Dive webinars as part of the corporate deep dive series were held in 2024 and 2025 where HQ and Cos staff reviewed Governance & Participation (Impact 1) & Normative frameworks, laws/policies (Outcome 1) and SP Outcome 5 (Women's voice, leadership and agency) These webinars provide an overview of indicator performance and key results for 2023 and 2024 including gaps that need to be addressed by reporting units; shared promising practices, and Socialized changes made for indicator methodological notes after the 2024 SP Mid-Term Review. The deep dive allowed UN Women to discuss and propose recommendations on indicators for SP (2026-2029).
Ensure strengthened monitoring of the revised SP indicator 0.1.f through global and regional CoPs, to support EDAR reporting on WPP Governance and Participation Section/PPID, ROs Supported by COs 2025/03 Completed The HQ team has conducted socialization sessions on SP indicators and reporting methodology during regional CoPs including LAC, ECARO and dedicated sessions to the management response to the corporate evaluation were also organized with regional CoPs for LAC, ECA and ESAR. A regional exercise was carried out by ACRO jointly with COs during 2024 and 2025 to build an impact narrative of UN Women's work in LAC.