Mar 2011 - Jan 2012

In West Africa, OHCHR’s Regional Office, together with other UN entities and partners, supported the organization of a round-table of the Ministers of Women’s Affairs of the 16 ECOWAS Member States at the end of which a regional action plan was adopted.

In Colombia, prior to the adoption of the Victim and Land Restitution Law, UN Women provided technical assistance to the government to incorporate a gender perspective and promoted regional consultations with women`s organizations and a public hearing at the National Congress. This law recognizes that women are among the most vulnerable victims and therefore they need to receive special attention in the provision of medical and physiological services, access to education and restitution of their properties.

The OHCHR continued to work closely with the SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SVC) to support her mandate through the provision of information and support in connection with country visits; support to staff fielded by the SRSG SVC for specific purposes and joint follow-up to SRSG SVC’s visit. OHCHR also provided secretariat support to Commissions of Inquiry created by the Human Rights Council.

OCHA supports the Gender Standby Capacity Project (GenCap), in collaboration with the Inter‐Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), aimed at building the capacity of humanitarian actors at country level to mainstream gender in all sectors of humanitarian response. From June 2007 to April 2011, 54 GenCap Advisers have supported 30 Humanitarian Country Teams. A Gender-Based Violence (GBV) window has been established in the GenCap Roster.

From 13 to 14 September 2011, the Regional Coordination Mechanism Thematic Working Group on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (RCM TWG-GEEW) (co-chaired by ESCAP and UN Women) organised and hosted the Inaugural Meeting of the Regional Advisory Group on Women and Peace and Security, during which the terms of reference were adopted and priority areas for action and support were discussed. The outcome was shared in an open session (“Priorities for Implementing United Nations Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security in the Asia-Pacific region”).

The UNAIDS Secretariat provided support for the Security Council debate in June 2011 on Impact of HIV/AIDS on International Peace and Security. The resulting UN Security Council resolution 1983 includes prevention of sexual violence in conflict and post conflict situations.

As part of the implementation of the interregional project “Enhancing capacities to eradicate violence against women through networking of local knowledge communities,” ECLAC has:a) Organized a sub-regional meeting to enhance the capacity of eradicating violence against women was held in Guatemala in April 2011 in collaboration with the Technical Secretariat of the Council of Ministers for Women in Central America and the Dominican Republic, attended by representatives of several countries and representatives of the Central American Integration System; andb) Held the interregional e-learning c

WHO also provided technical support and capacity building as part of an interagency workshop on integrating gender-based violence and engaging men and boys for gender equality in national AIDS programmes in Istanbul in which more than 25 country teams comprising of national AIDS programme managers, civil society groups working on violence against women or representing women living or affected by HIV and UN partners participated. WHO is also exploring additional opportunities for capacity development through new e-learning technologies.

Following the programme support provided in 2011 by UNFPA to the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), a curriculum based on the work in the 3 countries (India, Kenya and Uganda) has been developed by UNFPA in collaboration with IDS in 2011 and will be rolled out over 2012.

UN Women organised a workshop jointly with the Ministry of Women and Child Development in India (Goa) in September 2011 to strengthen capacity of National Women’s Machineries at State and Central levels on gender and planning, which deliberated on integration of trafficking, gender biased sex-selection and violence against women in development planning.