Support for Policy Development

In Panama, UNODC developed a gender-responsive litigation manual for public defenders and delivered training to judiciary members on handling gender-based violence cases. 

UNODC provided advisory support to the government of Mauritania on implementing gender-responsive policing practices.  

In June 2020, DPO launched the first Handbook to support UN Field Missions in preventing and responding to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), building on the publication of the first UN Policy on this same topic a few months earlier. Both these documents were developed by DPO jointly with the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (OSRSG-SVC) and in consultation with representatives from the United Nations Action Network on Sexual Violence in Conflict and partners at United Nations Headquarters. These documents provide guidance for civilian, military, and police personnel deployed in UN Field Missions on how to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence with a coordinated and survivor-centred approach. Since the release of the CRSV Policy and Handbook, DPO has been supporting their dissemination and implementation in the field.

IOM has significantly scaled up advocacy efforts around addressing Gender based violence, the safety of migrant women and girls, alongside enhanced risk mitigation of women and girls affected by conflict and displacement across the contexts we operate. As one example, in 2024 IOM co-authored a joint advocacy report with UNHCR and UNFPA on the risks facing women and girls at risk of being repatriated which outlined clear and actionable policy recommendations for the respective Governments involved and other stakeholders. 

Internally, IOM continues to advance the integration of Gender, GBV Risk mitigation, PSEA and safe and ethical handling of disclosures within all relevant institutional Policies, inclusive of Data Protection and Protection Mainstreaming policies. 

Supporting legislative and policy development is a core strategic priority of the UN Trust Fund, and one of the three outcome areas in its Strategic Plan 2021-2025, reflecting the critical importance of effective legislation, policies, national action plans and accountability systems to ensure survivors of violence have access to justice services and protection under fully implemented laws and policies.

As such, between 2021 and 2024, an average of 46% of initiatives supported by the UN Trust Fund per year included strategies to increase effectiveness of legislation, policies, national action plans and accountability systems to end violence against women and girls.

Between 2021 and 2024, the UN Trust Fund supported 11,904 institutional partners that had increased capacities to develop or implement national and/or local multisectoral strategics, policies and-/or action plans to end violence against women and girls. In total 4,217 local, subnational or national government institutions worldwide increased capacities to design and implement institutional reforms, strategies and /or policies to prevent or respond to violence women and girls. 

For example, in Kenya in early 2022, the Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW) supported Isiolo County, one of its project sites, to officially launch its own gender policy to guide the mainstreaming of policies and processes to address VAW/G. The policy was drafted by CREAW and the Kenya Women Parliamentarians Association. CREAW also teamed up with local women’s rights groups to advocate for the policy’s adoption. The policy set out specific information on how the County Government can mainstream gender in all county functions to address a number of issues, including public participation and the representation of women and girls in all sectors; economic funds and equal opportunities for women; and a mechanism for gender-based violence prevention and response (such as safety nets, shelters and economic justice).

UNFPA engages in advocacy and policy dialogue at national, regional and global levels, to accelerate action towards ending gender-based violence and harmful practices. By the end of 2020, as many as 114 UNFPA Regional and Country Offices were involved in strengthening national legislation and policy.

For example, Gender-biased Sex Selection and Son Preference programmes are spearheading a movement to end GBSS through the development of national costed action plans, policy and legal reforms as well as through a broad sweeping social movement aimed at changing harmful gender norms that drive male preference.

In 2022, FAO published the Practical guide on how to eliminate gender-based violence and protect rural communities through food security and agriculture interventions. This guide is designed to support country offices, FAO staff and strategic partners in the fight against any form of gender-based violence, facilitate the integration of protection issues in an FAO project cycle, and support the collection and analysis of data disaggregated by sex and other social variables for generating the evidence for policy-making and planning of gender-responsive and gender-transformative interventions. It provides the needed tools and promising approaches and experiences of the last decade used successfully to address GBV and eliminate protection risks in the field.  

Complementing strong and comprehensive legal frameworks, UN Women supports the development and implementation of national action plans (NAPs) for EVAWG that are critical for a coordinated approach to implementing national laws. The Handbook on multisectoral national action plans68 and the Handbook on Multisectoral National Action Plans to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls69 have been guiding UN Women’s work and supporting governments on developing responsive, evidence-based and well consulted NAPs to prevent violence against women and girls. Between 2022- 2023, UN Women supported 64 multi-sectoral strategies, action plans and policies adopted to support EVAWG. 

Specific examples of UN Women’s work include:

• Trinidad and Tobago: Led the creation of the first  costed National Strategic Action Plan on GBV (2023–2027).
• Fiji: Guided the National Action Plan to Prevent VAWG (2023–2028), based on consultations with 2,000+ stakeholders.
• Samoa: Developed a National Prevention Framework, integrating EVAWG into national planning.
• Cambodia: Provided technical assistance for its National Action Plan on VAWG (2019–2023).

UNDP is supporting national government to develop policies, strategies and action plans on gender mainstreaming. In Kyrgyzstan, under the Spotlight initiative, UNDP assisted the Ministry of Justice within legal inventory process to conduct gender expertise of prioritized laws in the area of SGBV and GEWE, including the key legal acts concerning domestic violence and ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men.

In Moldova, UNDP has piloted the development and implementation of a Local Action Plan on preventing and combating GBV, developed in a participatory manner, which matches the provisions of the National Strategy on Prevention and Combatting Violence Against Women and Girls 2018-2023.

UNDP, in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Family and Social Services and key stakeholders, has developed the five-year Gender Equality Action Plan which focused on five key areas/ policy goals in Maldives.

UNDP has supported the Cambodian Ministry of Women’s Affairs in drafting National Policy on Gender Equality and Neary Rattanak V (five-year strategic plan) covering GBV, in multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Similarly, UNDP Country Offices in Serbia, Montenegro, Tajikistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh supported the national authority in preventing and combatting against GBV and DV, as well as enhancing gender equality.

In 2020, WFP launched a new Protection and Accountability Policy (2020). In developing the Policy WFP adopted a field-first approach. Gender and GBV link explicitly to the new Policy—which commits WFP to adopt a specific normative and operational posture when designing and implementing, and reporting on its programmes:

A theory of change that underlines the views, priorities and agency of the people WFP serves as indispensable for WFP to deliver good programming in line with human rights, development, peace & security, and disability inclusion.

Complementing WFP’s food security analysis with a solid context analysis that deepens WFP’s understanding of the different risks faced by people where WFP operates, how that operational and risk context is evolving, which factors contribute to this threat (gender, age, disability) and the subsequent effects on peoples’ vulnerability to food insecurity and malnutrition.

Evidence-based decision making as imperative to understanding barriers to inclusion in safe programming. Data must be disaggregated by sex, age and disability.

A shift towards the centrality of protection and accountability across a range of critical functions to ensure the safety, appropriateness and dignity of food and nutrition assistance. This requires broadening our understanding of protection beyond programming.

With regards to the progress made towards the implementation of the WFP Gender Policy (2015-2020) an evaluation carried out in 2019 provided eight recommendations that were endorsed by the management and found that while the Policy is still relevant for WFP’s mandate, it “needs to be updated to support WFP’s work at country level firmly within UN system efforts to accelerate the support to government partners to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.” The update of the Gender Policy will not involve the change of the main goals of the policy, but it will involve the alignment to the new Strategic Plan (2022-2026), the current WFP and UN framework, and it will also include a structured and detailed Theory of Change. In December 2020 the Gender Office commenced the process. Initial key informants’ interviews have been carried out and the internal reference group has been established. Additionally, a survey was launched at the end of January 2021 addressed to any WFP employee and partners, to gather the broadest possible perspective on what the updated policy should include. The next steps will be a deeper desk review and the development of the first draft of the updated policy, that will be presented to the EB for the first of two informal consultations on July 8thth 2021. The final document will be presented to the first EB session of February 2022.

In 2021, WFP undertook the review and update of the Executive Director Circular on Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (OED2014/020). This ED Circular serves as WFP’s policy framework for PSEA and was last updated in 2014.  Since, policies, procedures and other applicable standards and guidelines as related to PSEA have been updated, WFP considers it a good practice to update the Circular to support effective administration, compliance and oversight. It is anticipated that the updated Circular will be finalized by January 2022.