Capacity Building for UN

In Gaza, West Bank, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, UNRWA staff attended training in detecting and counselling victims of gender-based violence. The staff included nurses, midwifes, health counsellors, medical officers, education counsellors, lawyers and social workers. In West Bank, and with the support of the Birzeit University, 4 trainings took place to introduce the concepts of community protection.

UNHCR, UNICEF and UNFPA are currently implementing a Capacity Development Project on gender-based violence, funded by ECHO, which focuses on Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan. UNICEF focuses on Ivory Coast, CAR and Chad, and UNFPA focuses on Sudan, Occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and Iraq. The objective is to train 63 capacity promoters, who will bolster the capacity of 360 international and national staff in the coordination of gender-based violence programming in these nine countries

The OHCHR supported the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences in strengthening partnerships with other human rights mechanisms, both special procedures and treaty bodies, particularly the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences and CEDAW held discussions on ways to strengthen cooperation in a number of areas of their work.

A UNDP global programme to support country level work is being developed to implement priority action areas including: work with local government and with traditional entities; multi-sectoral projects, especially comprehensive poverty reduction and governance projects; research on impacts, methods and baseline data; dissemination of research; support to the Secretary General’s Campaign to End Violence Against women; and work with NGOs and local campaigns to develop capacity, end recidivism and provide counseling for survivors.

On 3 June 2009, UN-HABITAT and UNIFEM signed a new Memorandum of Understanding regarding a global programme to tackle violence against women and girls in the world’s cities.

UNRWA revised the technical guidelines for the health department in April 2009, including the detection, counseling and referral of women victims of violence.A workshop for UNRWA health gender focal points on lessons learned in detecting women victims of violence in health centers was held in Damascus, in July 2009. The need for an internal and external referral system in partnership with host country stakeholders was highlighted.

In July 2009, UNHCR held a seminar with the CEDAW Committee on promoting the use of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women to protect women affected by forced displacement and statelessness, focusing on sexual violence and discrimination against displaced women and girls.

UNDP held its Global Conference on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in Caracas, Venezuela, in order to better identify entry points for UNDP’s work on gender-based violence.

OIOS recently commenced a thematic evaluation of the start-up phase of the Secretary-General’s Campaign “UNiTE to End Violence against Women”. The evaluation will also consider the broader framework in which the campaign is carried out, namely the UN’s work on gender mainstreaming and gender equality.

An OHCHR consultant is implementing the pilot country gender strategy aimed at mainstreaming a gender approach in all of the Office’s programming and activities, including ways to identify and analyze cases of gender-based violence and women’s rights violations.