Management Response

: Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division
: 2024 - 2024 , Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division (HQ)
: Mid-term review of the Strategic Partnership Framework 2022-2025 between UN Women, Sida and Norad (SPFIII)
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: Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division
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Strategic Partnership Framework 2022-2025 (SPFIII) has been informed by the final evaluation of the phase I conducted in 2016; mid-term review of the phase II conducted in 2019; and relevant corporate thematic evaluations. The objective of the mid-term review conducted in 2024 is to assess criteria agreed with Sida and Norad, that of coherence, internal and external, sustainability and impact, to inform future orientation and implementation of the programme. UN-Women welcomes the findings and recommendations of the MTR and is in general agreement with the eight recommendations. The Management Response focuses on key actions for implementing the MTR recommendations in the last year of phase III. The MTR findings and recommendations will also inform the design of proposed phase IV of the partnership.

: Approved
Recommendation: Extend the impact of knowledge products and learning processes on coherence across UN Women ensuring linkages to policy work in various spaces including the UN Security Council (UNSC) or IASC Principals and Deputies meetings, through: increasing data and evidence generation and updating knowledge products where these remain useful for priority programming approaches; improving accessibility and increasing visibility of priority knowledge products to give these wider traction and applicability to non-specialist staff across UN Women, as well as positioning UN Women with its partners.
Management Response: UN Women accepted recommendation 1. UN Women agrees with this recommendation for extending the impact of knowledge products and learning processes on coherence across UN Women ensuring linkages to policy work in relevant spaces. On WPP, UN Women will continue supporting the successful staffing structure model of regional policy specialists matrixed to the global advisor, as it maintains coherence and extends the impact of collaboratively agreed and tested knowledge products, and country tailored technical advice. Supported by HQ based Knowledge Management Specialist and Statistician, UN Women will continue generating knowledge and tools for country implementation; and advancing international measurement standards on women’s representation while positioning itself as a UN and global thought leader on WPP. In parallel, UN Women continues to contribute to technical guidance to the National Statistical Offices on the use of electoral data in the context of the Praia City Group on Governance Statistics, as co-supporting agency (with UNDP) of the Task Team on Participation in Political and Public Affairs. Furthermore, UN Women will continue investing in knowledge products outlining the gender impact of conflicts and humanitarian crises through an intersectional lens and increasing visibility and dissemination through the new knowledge portal and a thematic webpage for data on women and girls in conflicts and crises under the flagship Women Count initiative. Advancing a gender data revolution on WPS will also be one of the focus areas of the 2025 Secretary-General’s annual report on WPS and a priority for UN Women in preparation for the 25th anniversary of 1325.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Knowledge management
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Coherence
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Increase global data production on WPP and access to broader audiences. SPF Team WPP 2025/12 Initiated UN Women will continue generating global data and disseminate through knowledge platforms (incl. Local Government Website and UN Gender Quota Portal); and expand comparable VAWP prevalence data through country surveys. On SDG monitoring, UN Women will continue leading data compilation and reporting on SDG indicator 5.5.1b on local government, women in the executive, and women Heads of State. The 2025 edition of the Women in Politics Map, developed in collaboration with IPU will be launched at CSW69. Proposed actions are aligned with the WPP corporate evaluation management response presented to the ExBo and Sida in the annual session. May 2025 - The 2025 edition of the Women in Politics Map, was launched at CSW69; and the Team is working on updating Local Government Website and UN Gender Quota Portal; while supporting the of VAWP surveys in Argentina, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC Mexico and Uruguay
Continue producing cutting edge knowledge products and tools for country implementation to support WPP programming. SPF Team WPP 2025/12 Initiated Finalize and roll out guidance notes on i) data for Electoral Management Bodies (incl. related to electoral registers and data systems on voter registration, voter turnout, candidates and elected candidates); ii) developing prevalence surveys on VAWP ensuring consistency with existing international statistical guidelines to build a global repository of statistically reliable and comparable data. With these new tools UN Women aims to provide technical and practical guidance to key external partners across regions to strengthen data production and the data utilization including on SDG indicator 5.5.1b, key administrative data produced by EMBs (e.g. data on registered voters, voter turnout, candidates and elected candidates’ data); and expand comparative prevalence data on VAWP. A new Guidance Note on National Gender Observatories will inform technical assistance to UN Women Country Offices other UN agencies, and development partners to collect data, monitor trends on women’s political participation and track progress on governments commitments on women’s equal representation in decision making. May 2025 - Ongoing: (i) A first draft of the Guidance for EMBs on strengthening electoral data was prepared; and, in parallel, the outline for the Guidance to NSOs in using electoral data for producing statistics on inclusive political participation was prepared and agreed upon by the Praia City Group on Governance Statistics. These guidance notes will be finalized in 2025. (ii) The drafting of a Guidance Note on implementing VAWP surveys is ongoing and will be finalized in 2025.
Prioritize investment in advancing a “gender data revolution on WPS that reaches the general public in real time”. SPF Team WPS & HA 2025/12 Initiated UN Women intends to update and strengthen its knowledge offer ahead of the 25th anniversary of resolution 1325. Initiatives that are already underway, that will help centralize and make existing and new knowledge and data more accessible, include teams’ contributions to UN Women knowledge initiatives including the establishment of a new knowledge portal for this purpose, a dashboard on WPS and Humanitarian Action under Women Count as well as facilitating access and dissemination of knowledge products dedicated to gender analysis and needs assessments in crisis contexts. May 2025 - Ongoing: WPS team is preparing its contribution to the new UN Women Knowledge Portal + Women Count dashboard, and the HA is finalizing the new toolkit for gender analysis in conflict and crisis settings. The WPS team is also working on knowledge products to be released by the 25th anniversary, including the launch of the Peace Process Monitor. A webinar was already held to discuss the 2020-2023 findings and prepare for 2024 data collection. The annual SG’s report on WPS, drafted by the WPS team, will have an extended section on a gender data revolution on WPS. Notably, WPS, HA and Research and Data collaborated on a funding proposal for CRAFD on gender data for crisis settings and this was successful and recently approved.
Continue to leverage the Women’s Resilience to Disasters (WRD) knowledge hub, including tools like the WRD experts register and policy tracker, to extend knowledge impact and improve accessibility for non-specialist staff. SPF Team WPS/DRR 2025/12 Initiated Work already underway aims to enhance data, evidence generation and programming guidance by updating knowledge products on gender dimensions of early warning systems (with a WPS lens) and sea-level rise, aligned with the Sendai Framework Gender Action Plan and working with existing partners and country and regional offices, as well as by updating the WRD policy tracker through analyzing country progress in gender-responsive and inclusive legal, policy, strategic and planning frameworks. Findings will inform discussions in high-level policy forums and be showcased at key global events such as the Global Platform for DRR, World Oceans Conference, CSW69, and COP30. May 2025 - The WRD Policy Tracker which tracks policy progress in all UN Member States, has been updated and now features 266 national and regional DRR and climate frameworks, identifying 101 Member States with at least one gender-responsive and high-risk group inclusive disaster, climate, or development framework. A Policy Brief on the findings of the WRD Policy Tracker is being developed for release in Q2 of 2025.
Strengthen utilization of data and knowledge produced at the country and regional levels to inform the global policy work at the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and other humanitarian coordination mechanisms and highlight the added values of UN Women’s knowledge products. SPF Team HA 2025/12 Initiated The initiative is to monitor the pipeline of knowledge products produced in regions and countries and is leveraged for UN Women and partner engagement in the global, regional and country level coordination bodies and normative processes.
Recommendation: Engage UN Women leadership across country, regional and global levels to ensure understanding, buy-in and coordination with the conceptual, strategic and programmatic work enabled by SPF. This could include briefings to leadership as well as establishing stronger communication and coordination with relevant thematic advisory roles to share learning on specific approaches or opportunities for synergies between advisory and leadership roles, including how advisory capacity can best support political and policy engagement at different levels and how leadership decision can facilitate the responses to opportunities identified by SPF-funded advisors.
Management Response: UN-Women partially accepted recommendation 2. UN Women believes there is a strong internal coordination and coherence in the way the programme is designed and implemented. The unique nature and set-up of the SPF is reliant on the existing organizational structures and processes where SPF-supported interventions aim to address gaps in country and regional Strategic Notes, and SPF-funded staff and technical experts are reporting directly to leadership of country and regional offices and HQs departments, while simultaneously working closely with the thematic leads at HQs. The Internal Programme Board (IPB) responsible for the overall performance and high-level implementation issues, ensures that the programme delivers its strategic outcomes and realizes its benefits in a coherent, effective, and efficient way. The IPB comprises of Director, Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division, representative Regional Director, Chiefs of thematic sections, and Chief, Public Partnership Section, bringing in critical coherence between technical teams and leadership. Furthermore, critical reports (i.e., annual reports and briefs, evaluation reports, etc.) are shared regularly with relevant HQs teams (i.e., highlighting major milestones in the PPID newsletter) and country and regional offices through the regional staff supported by the programme. UN Women sees the benefit of increased communication and clear directives to ensure better visibility for the programme at all levels and will focus on the following, in addition to the ongoing efforts:
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Description:
Management Response Category: Partially Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021), Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Not applicable
UNEG Criteria: Coherence
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Increase investment in communications on the gender impact and UN Women’s programmatic approach in crisis settings drawing on initiatives (including SPFIII-supported work) in Lebanon, oPt, Sudan, Afghanistan, Colombia, CAR and other country contexts. SPF Team WPS and HA 2025/12 Initiated Through a partnership between WPS-HA and Global Communications team, UN Women will scale up communications and increase the visibility of gender issues and UN Women’s programming and role in crisis prevention and response. Media releases, articles and human-interest stories will support communications work across the different levels of organizations facilitating visibility of UN Women’s partnership with Norway and Sweden under SPFIII. May 2025 - The first three months of 2025 featured lots of UN Women’s communications efforts on several major crises, with special attention to Ukraine, Myanmar, Gaza, and Sudan. The latter even included a joint mission to Sudan that resulted in a significant number of publications and a focus on the impact of SPF. The WPSHA Community of Practice also held an interactive discussion and webinar for staff working on WPS and HA on how to communicate our knowledge and impact.
Conduct periodic debriefings on SPF to HQ, regional and country leaderships including through capacity building workshops/training. SPF Team 2025/12 Initiated Teams will use regional capacity building training for CO Reps, WPS annual retreat and other opportunities to communicate more clearly with COs about SPF. May 2025 - Check-ins with SPF-funded deployments have been focused on clarifying reporting updates for the annual donor report and expectations for new deployments, but this has not included a targeted or organized briefing for CO representatives.
Continue sharing annual reports, briefs, evaluation reports and highlighting programme’s results with regional and country offices and relevant HQs departments including through thematic communities of practice. SPF Team 2025/12 Initiated May 2025 - Preparation of the donor report and corresponding summary is underway.
Recommendation: Draw on and scale-up corporate coordination and dialogue using existing coordination mechanisms to address complementarity between WPP, WPS-HA and DRR agendas, including building on emerging synergies at field level to inform UN Women’s corporate Strategic Notes and Annual Work Plans. Depending on the country typology and context, this could include clarifying how different technical approaches can be delivered concurrently or be better aligned and sequenced for countries emerging or at risk of from conflict or crisis. Mechanisms such as the crisis response situation room and task teams have been mobilized to respond to political situation, conflict and humanitarian situations in countries like Haiti, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, looking at the needs and priorities of women and girls affected by crises, including IDPs, refugees and those in host communities. This can address linkages between political work, IASC advocacy, UNSC related discussions, investment in gender analysis and data, funding for local WRO’s and networks, partnerships with national governments and other actors on policy, humanitarian planning and legal processes/aspects, investigations in HR and IHL violations, operational response through the WPHF and UN Women’s country level programming on WPS and HA.
Management Response: UN-Women accepted recommendation 3. UN-Women agrees with this recommendation and the need to scale-up corporate coordination and dialogue mechanisms to address complementarity between WPP, WPS-HA and DRR agendas, including building on emerging synergies at country level to inform corporate planning. Existing interagency coordination mechanisms (e.g. The Interagency Task Force on TSMs) as well as UN Women internal task teams on specific countries (e.g. Bangladesh) provide spaces for continued building on emerging synergies at country level on WPP, HA/Refugee Response and WPS. The new CEDAW General Recommendation No 40, focused on parity between women and men in decision making systems – presents an opportunity to inform policy-oriented advocacy, UN programming at regional and country levels on the three thematic areas funded through SPF, support donor outreach and UN coordination.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and political participation (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Internal coordination and communication
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Coherence
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Continue providing coordinated and timely technical support to COs including in political crisis and transitions. SPF Team 2025/12 Initiated Bolster UN-Women’s country programming on WPP and the link to the WPS and HA agenda continuing with the provision of direct support to country programming, integrated policy advice and technical assistance at global, regional, and country levels, including through internal cross thematic task teams on specific countries replicating examples such as the Task Team on Bangladesh. This remains a key driver for results and enables UN-Women to leverage comparative advantage in advancing effective programming and UN coordination at country level. We will expand geographic coverage, adding to Europe and Central Asia, and East and Southern Africa with additional deployments in Fiji MCO and DRC CO. May 2025 - No cross-thematic crisis task teams have been activated in 2025 yet but one is planned for Ukraine in May. On WPP technical support to regional and country offices continues. In addition, new deployments in DRC and Fiji MCO recruited at the end of 2024 onboarded in January 2025. The WPP HQ team provided induction sessions and is working closely to support both new staff members with resource mobilisation efforts, and implementation of the WPP portfolio (including initiatives being funded under SPF)
Strengthen linkages between DRR, WPS, HA and WEE to ensure integrated approaches to DRR, climate security and climate change, and women’s economic empowerment through clarifying complementarities, particularly leveraging the WPHF to channel funding for local women’s rights organizations (WROs) working on DRR as well as the WPS Focal Points network to advance discussions with government partners. SPF Team 2025/12 Initiated There are already discussions happening regularly between the teams (i.e., the recent internal meeting on WPS and DRR synergies) with more to come and planned dedicated meetings with WEE in 2025. May 2025 - In the second half of 2024, the WPSHA community of practice featured several webinars and interactive discussions on the intersections of WPS, DRR, and climate security, as well as smaller discussions between the two teams to deepen/clarify the linkages between the two areas. WPS is also working with WEE and HA on a study of care in conflict and crises.
In coordination with Regional Offices, establish a mechanism for focused discussion on selected fragile countries to identify integrated technical support needs. PPID Directorate with SPF Team 2025/12 Initiated In the quarterly meeting of PPID Director and Regional Directors, priority countries that require focused scenario building and discussion on preventive/anticipatory action are being identified and these meetings with CO, RO and relevant sections (WPP, PSR, HA, WEE) will be set up from Q1 2025.
Distinctly define UN Women’s approach to the HDP nexus by leveraging the opportunity of the new Global Strategic Plan development, and drawing on lessons learnt in relation ongoing programming in crisis contexts under SN/AWP. SPF Team HA 2025/12 Initiated Building on the HDP nexus brief, an analytical paper and the corporate evaluation on the HDP nexus in the Arab States Region (ongoing), UN Women will hold a global discussion to clarify its HDP nexus approaches as part of the new global Strategic Plan development (2026-2029). This discussion is relevant to strategic approaches and partnerships with other UN agencies (IOM, UNHCR, DPPA, OCHA) and other actors in conflicts and crises; as well as corporate engagement in the follow up to the Global Refugee Forum and the ongoing engagement in the interagency discussions on Solutions to Internal Displacement. A focus group on HDPN and women’s leadership has been established and will guide discussions on UN Women’s strategic approach.
Recommendation: Invest further in long-term programme development processes - drawing on UN Women Gender Equality Accelerators - to ensure that UN Women remains relevant in the changing context, particularly in innovative programming areas that utilise thematic synergies. This includes the intersection of WPS, HA and DRR (with links between reconstruction and WEE as well as resilience, protection, human rights and local leadership related interventions). This should enable UN Women to be more adaptable in a changing funding landscape.
Management Response: UN-Women accepted recommendation 4.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Alignment with strategy
Organizational Priorities: Operational activities
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Continue supporting Country Offices’ programme design and resource mobilization efforts using the GEAs as the model through remote technical assistance and SPF seed funding. SPF Team 2025/12 Initiated Continue providing policy advice and comparative experiences to COs to design long-term programming approaches to WPP, WPS, HA and DRR in Strategic Notes, project documents and joint programmes in alignment with the GEA 1, GEA 8, GEA 9 results framework. Provision of catalytic funding will continue to upscale recent good practices on RM for long-term programming such as Jordan and Pakistan. For example, a SN/AWP guidance has been developed by the Humanitarian Section to guide the integration of relevant components in country programming documents, also examining linkages with other programmatic portfolios. May 2025 - Ongoing: On WPP support on developing WPP programme development continues. During Q1 Bangladesh and Haiti Cos were supported on project design with resource mobilisation results. In addition, in a two and half month period, near 2 million USD has been allocated to 19 Cos and 2 Ros to support staffing capacities, filling programming funding gaps and provide seed funding with the aim of catalytic results on longer term programming.
Collate and showcase good practices of gender mainstreaming in UN programming and long-term fundraising efforts, through regional and global CoPs and peer to peer exchanges. SPF Team 2025/12 Initiated Conduct dedicated thematic webinars to facilitate peer-to-peer learning on good practices of gender mainstreaming in UN programming and long-term fundraising efforts through active engagement of the global and regional CoPs on WPP, WPS, HA and DRR. May 2025 - The WPSHA Community of Practice held an interactive discussion/webinar in October 2024 on “Mobilizing resources in Conflict and Crisis Contexts”, sharing good practices from selected UN Women offices. The WPP CoP continued distributing newsletters and held a Webinar to introduce the online training modules on violence against women in politics and elections (VAWP/E), produced with SPF resources Part of this work has included a collaboration between the global team and ESARO to develop training modules targeted to different electoral stakeholders - EMBs, security sector, justice sector, observers, political parties, UN staff and CSOs. The training presents global research and data, programming, and policy experiences related to VAWP/E prevention, monitoring, mitigation, and response. The webinar provided cross-learning among colleagues through sharing lessons from COs and regions that have piloted the modules and engage in peer exchange and provide feedback through discussion
Continue prioritizing investment and support to long-term programme development that rely on thematic synergies. SPF Team 2025/12 Initiated There are various ways in which thematic synergies are being strengthened to support countries with long-term integrated programme development. Programme development and fundraising has been one of the most impactful deliverables of long-term SPF deployments, and these programmes typically cut across different thematic pillars. To prepare for a potential fourth phase of SPF, special emphasis will be placed on strengthening linkages between the work on conflict and crises and women’s economic empowerment. Examples include Peacebuilding Fund programming in conflict-affected countries that is often focused on women’s economic empowerment, often formulated by SPF-funded deployments. In that regard, a study and expert group meeting on the economy of care in conflict-affected countries and humanitarian crises (including displacement and refugee response settings) is being advanced by WPS, HA, WEE teams. The WPS team has also collaborated with the WEE team on another new study (in development) on the role of women in economic recovery and reconstruction. Climate security is another area where WPS, DRR and WEE teams collaborate, and a study on financing for gender in climate and security is expected to be finalized soon to support advocacy. Similarly, UN Women works closely with the World Bank as part of the UN-World Bank Steering Committee on Fragile and Conflict-Affected States, to help inform the World Bank’s country allocations, and to advocate for greater engagement of women in reconstruction planning and stronger gender analysis of such long-term plans, whether in IFIs or in several countries where reconstruction plans are being developed. Furthermore, UN Women is consolidating inputs to become a member of the Santiago Network to support, at a country’s request, loss and damage assessments – which involved WEE and IGS inputs and builds on DRR work in gender-responsive Post-Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs), which also build on the rapid gender analyses carried out as part of our humanitarian response. PDNAs are also increasingly being used to assess conflict-related damage and inform recovery and reconstruction while also mostly having been carried out in Fragile, Conflict and Violence-affected settings. May 2025 - Work on these studies (on care in conflict and crises and on women’s role in reconstruction) is underway. WPS and DRR collaborated during the WPS National Action Plans (NAPs) Focal Points meeting, hosted by Japan in Tokyo in February 2025, recognizing disaster risk reduction as a key pillar of the WPS agenda. Following capacity assessment, UN Women is not currently in a position to meet the demands of formal membership in the Santiago Network. However, UN Women will continue to support loss and damage assessments through its gender-responsive Post-Disaster Needs Assessments (PDNAs). Progress continues in this area, with the revised gender guidelines for PDNAs now in draft form and undergoing further review through the PDNA Core Group.
Recommendation: Develop a coordinated approach to respond to the wider donor landscape and funding trends for GEWE. Funding constraints are an ongoing concern, despite SPF successes in leveraging funds, both due to systemic weaknesses (such as dwindling funds to support WPP in between election cycles) and due to the current downturn in overall funds for GEWE. UN Women should draw on the SPF funded capacity across the system to identify internal and external actions in response to current and predicted shortfalls, including: external advocacy to enable access to increased, predictable and long term funding including in relation to conflict and crisis contexts; forging of new partnerships; framing how UN Women’s work can be integrated into wider programming; and research into innovative funding mechanisms for the future in countries with declining donor funding.
Management Response: UN Women accepted recommendation 5.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Resource mobilization
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Formulate a strong proposal for SPFIV that can be shared with other prospective donors that want to join the Strategic Partnership Framework. SPF Team, PPID Directorate, SPD 2025/06 Overdue-Not Initiated The SPFIV proposal and donor outreach will be based on an analysis and forecast of funding trends and a strategy for resource mobilization tailored to this programme and this context. Outreach to donor countries will include targeted knowledge products that communicate long-term results of SPF-funded work. Deadline adjusted to mid-2026, as it is agreed with donors to proceed with one-year cost extension of phase III, and plan negotiations for multi-year programme in 2026.
Continue to leverage current donor partners, Norway and Sweden, for advocacy purposes showcasing the SPF results and benefits of the funding modality. SPF Team, PPID Directorate, SPD 2025/12 Initiated This can include highlighting SPF in ExB statements as well as sharing the value and impact of SPF with other likeminded partners, as part of engagement with WPS leads in the Security Council (including co-chair of the Informal Expert Group) or a joint event with Sida to showcase the programme’s results to other donors. Furthermore, UN Women outreach and resource mobilization efforts will draw on lessons learnt linked to the design of an innovative financing mechanism (Outcome Based Approach-OBA) in specific countries under the Second Change Education (SCE) programme. There are feasibility study and documents related to financing options for UN Women (beyond SCE) and the practical examples can provide valuable lessons to revise/replicate/scale-up these mechanisms. In addition, in the area of life-long learning and learning for earning (approach for crisis affected women/girl) the HA team participated in global summits (ie Transforming Education summit) on the role of the private sector, foundations and Innovative financing. UN Women will also look into other organisations experience with Innovative financing (UNHCR and UNICEF for instance), especially in humanitarian response. May 2025 - Both Norway and Sweden have been receiving extensive monthly summaries and analysis of WPS developments in the Security Council since our last annual meeting.
Formalize partnership with the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative as part of ongoing collaboration with WMO and engagement with the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative. SPF Team DRR 2025/12 Initiated May 2025 - A UN to UN agreement to formalize partnership with CREWS has been developed under ESARO as a pilot with plans upscale to other regions. The agreement is expected to be signed by both entities by Q2 of 2025.
Mobilize the HDP nexus funding for crisis settings through the wider programming, leveraging the synergies and complementarities of thematic areas UN Women engage. Partner and engage in joint programming with other UN agencies to mobilize resources for joint action/collaboration and programming in crisis settings, for example with IOM, UNHCR, and WFP is another corporate priority. SPF Team HA 2025/12 Initiated UN Women recently signed the MoU with IOM on response to displacement and is discussing development of the country-level coordination model with WFP on livelihoods and food security related interventions. These partnerships provide opportunities for UN Women to advocate for agendas such as gender and displacement, food insecurity, and livelihood, and further mobilize resources/political and institutional support jointly with big humanitarian partners. A donor roundtable on advancing gender equality and women’s rights in crises is planned in Q1 of 2025 in Geneva.
Recommendation: Prioritize the contribution of SPF to sustaining gains for gender equality, women’s leadership and empowerment in the longer term through building local and national capacities within member states and within civil society, including their ability to finance activities outside of UN Women’s financial support. Prioritize long-term capacity building for national ownership of change processes to support GEWE goals. This should include a strong focus on external engagement across national, regional and global levels to embed gender equality within public financial management capacities as well as increasing direct support for WRO’s.
Management Response: UN-Women accepted recommendation 6. Overall, SPF supported initiatives 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 technical assistance and capacity building targeting key institutions to support legal reforms and strengthening of women’s skills as office holders and leaders and increasing capacities at all stages of their path into politics. Similarly, UN Women HQ and regional and country offices are all prioritizing their engagement on the planning and implementation of UN transitions, in anticipation of reduced footprint by large UN peacekeeping or special political missions and increased demands on UN Women. This is an entire workstream with its own mechanisms and processes, and UN Women will continue to advocate for localization and effective channeling of resources and capacity-building to national and local actors in these contexts. UN Women expects to finalize its internal guidance note on this matter in 2025 and contribute to the revision of the overall UN Transitions guidance for the whole system.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Capacity development
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Sustainability
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Bolster country support enabling timely deployment of technical expertise and capacity building to key national partners and Civil Society. SPF Team WPP 2025/12 Initiated With regards to national capacities within Member States, SPF funding will continue supporting filling capacity gaps within key national institutions such as EMBs and Legislatures. Recent examples include national deployments in Central African Republic and Liberia directly contributing to: i) National Election Commission of Liberia Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Policy; and the updated Gender and election’s strategy by the CAR National Elections Authority. In 2025, the WPP will also roll out the new legislative induction training for women office holders at national and local levels to support addressing enduring challenges they face in their political roles. Additional funding for civil society will be made available through the WYDE programme which will complement UN coordination, global knowledge generation and sustained country programming supported through SPF, with resources dedicated to foster networks among diverse women leaders, feminists, and young women, including through financial support to young women’s organizations and feminist networks members of the Gender Equality Forum (GEF) Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership (AC6); 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. May 2025 - Ongoing A four-day legislative induction training for 20 women local councilors from various regions in Zimbabwe in March 2025. This training served as a pilot for the legislative training manual currently being finalized by the WPP HQ team. Over the four days, participants engaged in a series of interactive sessions designed to strengthen their skills as effective local councilors. The training covered key aspects of legislative, representative, and oversight functions, including problem identification and solution development, gender-responsive legislation and budgeting, negotiation and communication skills, and oversight mechanisms. A legislative induction pilot training for the Members of Parliament in Guyana has been planned and will be conducted during Q2 2025. The training is planned to be 2.5 days, and it will support women parliamentarians to build their skills to mainstream gender through their function of legislation, representation, and oversight.The MPs will also provide feedback to the UN Women to further improve the content of the training manual. After incorporating their feedback, the training manual will be finalised, and translated to additional language and be rolled out in other regions in 2025 and 2026 Through the WYDE | Women’ Leadership programme, UN Women has awarded near $ 1 Million US$ in grants to eight women’s rights organizations across four regions to advance the goals of the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership. 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. The Call for Proposals in 2024 received 234 applications, demonstrating the high demand for support in advancing women’s leadership, mobilizing feminist movements, and transforming social norms.
Concentrate efforts under the WPS work on National Action Plans and on supporting women-led and women’s rights organizations, on financing and building their capacity to access funding. SPF Team WPS & HA 2025/12 Initiated This will be prioritized in 2025 (including as part of the campaign endorsed by the Secretary General to raise 300 million dollars for women CSOs in conflict-affected and crisis settings under the Gender Equality Acceleration Plan and as follow-up to our study on funding gaps S/2024/671 p.4), and in the next phase of this partnership. This is also expected to be prioritized in the next Strategic Plan. Complementarity with localization objectives and ongoing efforts to increase the leadership of women in crises, drawing on the successes and lessons learnt in relation to the creation of the Women’s Advisory Groups in countries like Sudan and other initiatives will be facilitated, as well as through consultations and dialogues with Member States. Funding for local women led organizations is an integrated component of the GEA on LEAP (HA), WPS Facility as well as Women’s resilience to Disasters programmatic frameworks ensuring a coherent approach to localization across all stages of crisis (from prevention to response and early recovery). May 2025 - WPHF has raised 118 million dollars towards their 300 million goal. A study on funding for women’s organizations in conflict-affected countries (funded by SPF) was published and we will soon hold an external webinar on it. This issue is also being prioritized in Strategic Plan discussions and by the Gender Equality Acceleration Plan.
Continue providing technical support and capacity building on the gender dimensions of disasters within DRR coordination mechanisms and normative processes, enabling entry points for alternative financial support (see previous recommendation) including for civil society, while leveraging the ongoing work and support, particularly through the WRD knowledge hub for advancing discussions on financing for gender-responsive DRR. SPF Team WPS/DRR 2025/12 Initiated
Continue to leverage the IASC membership to strengthen the positioning of local women’s organizations in the humanitarian coordination mechanisms and decision-making spaces. SPF Team HA 2025/12 Initiated UN Women convened the IASC deputy-level session on this matter in October 2024 and will mobilize other IASC members’ support to accelerate the support to local women’s organizations at the country level, involving Member States and other actors in this discussion. The draft Gender Accountability Framework guiding priorities for HCT and the cluster system integrate indicators to track progress towards localization principles and commitments.
Recommendation: Engage in strategic and coordinated advocacy to address the lack of political will and commitment from some governments and inter-governmental actors to advance gender equality and women's empowerment. This relates both to engagement around the politicized backlash against women’s rights in key countries and a wider de-prioritization of GEWE in some key spaces. This process can draw on the advisory capacity and established civil society relationships fostered by SPF to date.
Management Response: UN-Women accepted recommendation 7. UN-Women agrees with this recommendation and the need to strengthen advocacy 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. The Beijing+30 Action Agenda will be the main advocacy tool targeting governments and a broad range of stakeholders and advance UN Women’s universal mandate.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
Leverage Beijing+30 as a key moment for member states to renew their commitments and strengthen accountability to full, effective and accelerated implementation and resourcing of the Beijing Platform for Action as well as the Sustainable Development Goals through mobilizing support around the Beijing+30 Action Agenda. PPID, CSD, UNSCD, SPD under the leadership of DED Results 2025/09 Initiated Developed through extensive analysis and consultation, including inputs from 159 Member State reports, and building on the twelve critical areas of Beijing, the Beijing+30 Action Agenda consisting of six high-impact actions to address poverty, amplify women’s voices, and advance equality, provides a focused and actionable pathway to catalyze transformative change and accelerate progress in the run-up to 2030. The Action Agenda will be launched on International Women’s Day and at CSW69, and UNCTs have been asked to support Member States identify 1-2 Country Impact Actions, aligned with national policy priorities. Member States are expected to announce their Country Impact Actions during the high-level event during the General Assembly in September 2025. May 2025 - March 2025 saw the launch by the SG of the Clarion Call for Gender Equality, the launch of the SG’s report on Beijing plus 30 and the summary report prepared by UN Women (which generated lots of media attention), the CSW Political Declaration and the launch of the Beijing plus 30 Action Agenda, and record-breaking levels of attendance to CSW. The action agenda is being launched and advocated for at country level by our offices now, and there will be high-level events at the High-Level Political Forum in July and the General Assembly in September, followed by a meeting of heads of state/government in Beijing in October.
Develop communications and advocacy plans on WPP, focusing on the new CEDAW General Recommendation No 40 focused on parity between women and men in decision making systems - adopted in October 2024. SPF Team WPP 2025/12 Not Initiated UN Women will prioritize bolstering communications and advocacy within the framework of the Beijing+30 Action Plan, leveraging the opportunities provided by the WYDE Initiative; and ensure corporate messaging and advocacy package developed inform UN Coordination at country levels and support donor outreach.
Prioritize combatting technology facilitated gender-based violence, with coordinated action between WPP and EVAW. SPF Team WPP 2025/12 Initiated With the aim of strengthening partnerships with relevant organizations to sustain gains and respond to ongoing backlash, UN Women will prioritize development of new programme responses, including online training programmes such as the Australian E-safety commissioner’s social Media Self Defense trainings for women in public life including women activists, human rights defenders, and journalists.
Leverage opportunities for greater visibility during the 25th anniversary of resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (throughout the year and especially around October 2025). SPF Team WPS 2025/10 Initiated UN Women is already coordinating internally and across the UN and with civil society partners to make sure that all events and communication efforts are advancing the same key messages and add up to a coherent campaign and strategy. While it is expected most knowledge/communications initiatives to converge in October 2025, these messages and data will also be used in key moments of UN Women’s Beijing plus 30 overall strategy. May 2025 - Work is underway through coordination meetings with other UN entities and their communications departments, the development of key messages, corporate branding, and the tagline “Women lead. Peace follow” which was already used during CSW and Beijing plus 30 events in March 2025
Recommendation: Develop collaborative activities between UN Women, Sida and Norad to amplify messages around the successes and lessons from SPF in driving system-wide change and context specific change for women. To date the relationship between UN Women, Sida and Norad has been highly supportive, with UN Women valuing the depth of the relationship, efforts of Sida and Norad to interrogate how SPF enables change, and constructive feedback gained through regular engagements. There is appetite within UN Women to further this with collaborative activities to maximize the value of the partnership. This could focus on sharing lessons externally and facilitating discussions across the donor community to help shape wider responses to the current challenges to progress on GEWE. Utilizing key moments, such as the 1325+25 anniversary, the peacebuilding architecture review, the Global Platform for DRR 2025 and ongoing engagement in IASC could provide initial impetus for this.
Management Response: UN-Women accepted recommendation 8.
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Description:
Management Response Category: Accepted
Thematic Area: Peace and security (SPs before 2018), Leadership and participation in governance systems (SP 2018-2021)
Operating Principles: Advocacy
Organizational Priorities: Partnership
UNEG Criteria: Impact
Key Actions
Responsible Deadline Status Comments
UN Women, in collaboration with Sida and Norad, will identify opportunities for sharing information and analysis in real time and discuss possible entry points for joint policy work around these themes. SPF Team (in collaboration with Sida and Norad) 2025/12 Initiated For example, related to the Security Council, the investigations by gender experts, results, challenges and lessons learned in relation to GEWE in crisis settings. May 2025 - Plans for an event with NGOs from conflict-affected countries, with the participation of Sweden and Norway and during the 25th anniversary of 1325 are underway (but no formal outreach done yet until we get confirmation from our civil society partners first). UN Women has secured speaking slots at the 2025 Global Platform for DRR for women leaders from Sahel region to speak at the Special Session on Progress on implementing the Gender Action Plan and will showcase regional and country level results in side events, including the ignite stage and innovation hub. SIDA and Norad would be welcomed to attend these events, including to speak or share a video message at a Gender Champions event organised by UN Women on the eve of the Global Platform for DRR from 4-6 June 2025.
UN Women will keep Sida and Norad involved in plans and opportunities for visibility and joint advocacy around milestone processes and global events. SPF Team (in collaboration with Sida and Norad) 2025/12 Initiated Examples to be considered include 25th anniversary of 1325, Global Platform for DRR in 2025, the implementation of IASC Gender Equality related policy commitments in crises resulting from conflicts and political instability. May 2025 - Security Council analysis and updates on WPS have been shared with Sweden and Norway on a monthly basis.