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United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) - Strategic Plan 2022–2025 (UNW/2021/6) [EN/AR/RU/ZH]

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Summary

The Strategic Plan 2022–2025 (the Strategic Plan) aims to guide UN-Women for the next four years – with an eye toward the 2030 deadline to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It articulates how UN-Women will leverage its unique triple mandate, encompassing normative support, UN system coordination and operational activities, to mobilize urgent and sustained action to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls and support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.

At a time when COVID-19 has compounded all aspects of gender inequality, bold actions and increased financing are needed to rebuild better and equal, to address the needs of all women and girls and leave no one behind.

The Strategic Plan is based on an extensive consultative process and draws from analysis of progress and persistent challenges, including recommendations from the 25-year review and appraisal of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, as well as lessons learned from UN-Women’s first decade.

Given the interconnected nature of global challenges, UN-Women will focus on integrated approaches to address the root causes of inequality and affect broader systems change, across its thematic focus areas: governance and participation in public life; economic empowerment; ending violence against women and girls; and women, peace and security, humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction.

In support of this vision, UN-Women will continue its business transformation to enhance organizational effectiveness and efficiency, by further refining its business model, implementation modalities and organizational structure to equip the Entity to deliver results at scale, as a key partner in a repositioned UN development system.

I. Overview

1. Developed in the midst of a global pandemic, the Strategic Plan 2022–2025 (the Strategic Plan) aims to guide UN-Women for the next four years – with an eye toward the 2030 deadline to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the following sections, we review global progress and persistent challenges in achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, and spell out UN-Women’s ambitious strategy to bring about visible, transformational change.

2. At a time when global progress on gender equality was already off track, COVID-19 has compounded all aspects of inequality and rolled back hard-won gains. In the wake of the pandemic, countries have an opportunity to rebuild better and equal by mainstreaming gender equality across all efforts to rebuild societies and economies, to address the needs of all women and girls and leave no one behind. This will require unwavering political will, increased financing and a focus on bold actions that can accelerate the pace of change, which UN-Women intends to proactively advance as part of the Strategic Plan.

3. UN-Women’s triple mandate, along with its global network and deep policy and programming expertise, continues to endow the Entity with a unique capacity to: (i) support Member States to strengthen global norms and standards for gender equality and women’s empowerment, and mainstream gender perspectives in other thematic areas; (ii) promote coordination and coherence across the UN system to enhance accountability and results for gender equality and women’s empowerment; and (iii) undertake operational activities to support Member States, upon their request, in translating global norms and standards into legislation, policies and strategies at the regional and country levels. This allows UN-Women to link global, national and local actors to create an enabling environment for the achieveme nt of gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide.

4. As a framing vision, the Strategic Plan aims to achieve gender equality, the empowerment of all women and girls, and the full enjoyment of their human rights. The Strategic Plan is anchored in the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security (WPS), the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, and other relevant intergovernmental outcomes, such as resolutions of the General Assembly and agreed conclusions of the Commission of the Status of Women. It contributes to the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment made in other relevant UN instruments and resolutions.

5. In the Beijing+25 review process, Member States called on all actors to tackle the underlying structural barriers and discriminatory practices that hold back progress on gender equality. In response to this call, and given the interconnected nature of global challenges, UN-Women will focus on integrated approaches to address the root causes of inequality and affect broader systems change, including by supporting:

  • the strengthening of global normative frameworks, and gender-responsive laws, policies and institutions;

  • financing for gender equality;

  • positive social norms, including through engaging men and boys;

  • women’s equitable access to services, goods and resources;

  • women’s voice, leadership and agency;

  • the production, analysis and use of gender statistics, sex-disaggregated data, and knowledge; and

  • UN system coordination for gender equality and women’s empowerment.

6. UN-Women will advance these systemic outcomes across its four established thematic impact areas: (i) governance and participation in public life; (ii) women ’s economic empowerment; (iii) ending violence against women and girls; and (iv) women, peace and security, humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction.

7. The only way to achieve transformational results for gender equality and women’s empowerment is with and through partners, and ensuring that commitments are backed by sustainable financing and accountability. In this context, deepening and expanding partnerships and influencing the actions and financing of other actors are cornerstones of the Strategic Plan.

8. UN-Women is well placed to support Member States and mobilize a broad constituency of partners to bring about lasting and transformative changes for all women and girls. Major partners include the UN system, women’s and youth organizations, the private sector, international financial institutions (IFIs), research organizations, the media, men and boys, and other stakeholders.