Support for Policy Development

The OHCHR Regional Office for Central Africa, in partnership with the UN Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Cental Africa (CNUDHD) contributed to the elaboration of the Cameroon National Gender Policy, which includes activities to combat gender-based violence, by providing technical advice, sharing documentation, and supporting, with other UN system partners, the national validation workshop for the draft national gender policy.The OHCHR Regional Office for Europe provided advocacy and advice on the preparation of an EU strategy on Violence against Women in October 2010. On 24-25 November 2010, OHCHR organized a two-day Expert workshop: The elimination of all forms of violence against women – challenges, good practices and opportunities. Hide

The WHO publication Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS: Critical Intersections. A Guide to Programming is a practical tool for stakeholders to expand programming for HIV/AIDS and VAW; to implement evidence-based approaches; and to support program innovation combined with systematic evaluation to grow the evidence base for joint HIV/AIDS and VAW programs. Hide

Since September 2010, FAO is implementing through United Nations Joint Program or with UN partners a regional project “Eastern Africa regional response to food insecurity, HIV and GBV” in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, reaching more than 80,000 beneficiaries. Within the regional project, gender-based violence and the needs of populations affected by gender-based violence and HIV are addressed through the Adult and Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools, at community, national and regional levels. Hide

In West Bank and Gaza, UNRWA is involved in the UN Country Team gender taskforce, by implementing the component addressing gender-based violence in the joint UN MDG gender programme “gender equality and women’s empowerment in oPT”. Hide

In Argentina, UNDP collaborates with national women’s organizations to help the effective implementation of the new law on the prevention and elimination of violence against women, the launching of a VAW Observatory, the development of local centres, and the training of local women on issues related to violence against women.In Papua New Guinea, UNDP was engaged with three national women’s organizations to conduct capacity assessments of the organizations themselves, using the Capacity Assessment Framework for Gender Mainstreaming. For the “Office for the Development of Women”, the engagement looked at its capacity in developing and monitoring the implementation of national policies to protect women from domestic violence. The engagement also included capacity development to support the development and implementation of strategies and action plans on violence against women of the three women’s organizations.Via the UN Gender Theme Group, UNDP Myanmar provided inputs into the National Action Plan on the Advancement of Women being prepared by the Ministry of Social Welfare, which may be submitted for cabinet approval in the beginning of 2011. Hide

Based on the recommendations of The UNAIDS Action for Results: Outcomes Framework 2009-2011, a multi-stakeholder meeting was held in Nairobi aimed at aligning and linking the efforts of different stakeholders to address the linkages between gender-based violence and HIV and AIDS in National Strategic Plans; building partnerships at the national level in order to integrate a comprehensive response to violence against women and girls into national AIDS strategies and plans; and strengthening capacity to engage men and boys for promoting and addressing gender equality. Hide

In collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)/Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, DAW, now part of UN Women, organized an expert group meeting on good practices in national action plans on violence against women, which took place in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, from 13 to 15 September 2010. During the meeting, experts identified key elements and good practice examples for the development, content, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national action plans on violence against women. Further information regarding the expert group meeting, including expert discussion notes, is available on line at: https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/v-egms-nap2010.htm. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, continues to provide technical assistance to advocates, including national women’s machineries, for the development of National Action Plans to end violence against women in: eight Caribbean countries; the Seychelles, through work with the Ministry of Health and Social Development; and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, through a workshop with the Palestinian Ministry of Women’s Affairs on the National Strategy to Combat Violence against Women. UNIFEM issued a ‘Ten Point National Accountability Checklist’ on ending violence against women for policy-makers, parliamentarians, and advocates to strengthen due diligence in the development and tracking of national and local policies/programmes. UNIFEM partnered with excluded groups of women, including indigenous women, HIV-positive women’s networks, young women and migrant women workers from Africa, Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Latin America and the Caribbean to hold policy-makers accountable to eliminate violence.UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, launched its online Global Virtual Knowledge Centre (http://www.endvawnow.org) which provides state-of-the-art, evidence-based guidance to develop capacities of country-level practitioners in effective design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes. Hide

Through a gender-based violence Coordination mechanism established by UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, and GIZ in 2010, Cambodia has been at the forefront of joint advocacy and behavioral change initiatives. Hide

In May 2010, seven UN agencies (UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, UNDP, UNHCR, OHCHR, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO) have launched a three-year UN Joint Program "Ending violence against women - a national priority for Kyrgyzstan". Four strategic compenents of the program include: 1) strengthening policy framework, including through the implementation of the recommendations of the UN human bodies and procedures; 2) improving official data collection system and analysis of collected data; 3) awareness-raising, sensititation and capacity-building with the view to change gender stereotypes; 4) protecting and helping survivors of gender-based violence. Hide