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In 2018, the UN Trust Fund published a technical annex to its Annual Report of 2017, providing an update on the results framework of its strategic plan, 2015–2020. As the first such report to be produced by the UN Trust Fund in its 20-year history, it involved the development of indicators, methods and systems to collect data, including input from, and in consultation with, more than 70 grantee organizations. As a result, the framework has been simplified to include three tiers of result types in order to better reflect which results can be attributed to the secretariat of the UN Trust Fund and which are achieved by the organizations themselves through the Trust Fund grant. A mid-term review of the current Trust Fund’s strategic plan was initiated in 2018, and the report is scheduled to be issued in early 2019.
ESCWA, in partnership with UNDP, UNFPA, and UN WOMEN, launched the study on Gender Justice and the Law in the Arab States Region. This study provides a base line assessment of laws and policies affecting the realization of gender equality and the protection of women from violence in the region. The 18 country reports highlight successful legal provisions and identify gaps that countries can target to meet their international obligations and commitments.
ESCWA presented a paper on the “missing links” in research on women’s economic empowerment in Arab States at the conference on “Economic Empowerment of Women and the Promotion of the Values of Peace, Justice and Citizenship” in Oman in December 2018. The paper argues that salient forms of discrimination, such as violence against women, are insufficiently analysed as barriers to women’s economic participation in the region. The paper suggests pathways to better integrate violence against women in the region’s economic research and policy agenda, including through national costings of the economic impact of violence against women.
ESCWA, in partnership with UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, and the National University of Ireland, Galway, is currently developing a model to cost the economic impact of child marriage in the Arab region.
ESCWA, in partnership with the League of Arab States and UN Women, organized a training workshop focused on the “Guidance Note for Comprehensive National-Level Reviews” to support participating member States in the timely preparation of their national-level reviews on progress made and challenges encountered in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
ESCWA participated in the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics (IAEG-GS) in the Arab Countries. The meetings brought together experts from the National Statistical Offices, Women Machineries, regional and international experts to review and discuss development of gender statistics for evidence-based policy making. This included: (i) methods for compiling and calculating the Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) indicators, and (ii) the final version of the ESCWA Household Survey Questionnaire on Violence against Women.
1. Intervention to address VAW in antenatal care setting : WHO and the Wits Institute for Reproductive health have finalised a randomised control trial of an empowerment counselling-based intervention in antenatal care for pregnant women experiencing abuse in Johannesburg, South Africa. The trial found that the intervention was efficacious in reducing IPV, and was acceptable but delivering it would require further efforts.. The findings and intervention training manual will be published in 2018 2. Building on field testing of the WHO clinical handbook for the response to intimate partner violence and sexual violence, WHO is carrying out implementation research to identify effective approaches to roll out WHO clinical guidelines and derivative tools on the health sector response to violence against women. 3. The questionnaire developed for the WHO multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence against women has been updated and now includes questions on non-partner sexual violence, sexual harassment and updated questions on social norms and mental health. The questionnaire will be published in 2018 along with an accompanying question-by-question manual. 4. WHO updated its database on intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence and established a technical advisory group for the VAW inter-agency working group on estimation and data as part of the UN-wide SDG monitoring efforts
UNV captures sex-disaggregated data.
There is increasing momentum to address the evidence gap on the impact and effectiveness of volunteerism for sustainable development. The State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR) is UNV’s flagship publication, produced every 3 years. The SWVR 2018 considers how volunteerism and community resilience interact across diverse contexts. It adds to the evidence on inclusive, citizen-led approaches to resilience building – including from a gender lense. It examines how wider actors can build from communities’ self-organization in a complementary way, nurturing the most beneficial characteristics of volunteerism while mitigating against potential harms to the most vulnerable, including women and girls.
Several of the research institutes of the United Nations University (UNU) have conducted research projects on EVAW. The UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) has explored the effects of conflict-induced displacement on gender norms in Turkey, finding an increased tolerance towards domestic violence among women who were forced to migrate. Another research project discovered that underlying the preferences of a population effected the impact of legal bans against harmful practices, such as female genital cutting and domestic violence. These papers, among others, will appear in the book “Towards Gender Equity in Development” to be published in October 2018. The UNU Computing and Society (UNU-CS) has undertaken research to understand the potential of ICT on efforts to end VAW, including forced labor and sexual exploitation in the context of migration, and cyber harassment. The research develops practical and policy tools to support victims and survivors, and to assist advocacy and policymaking institutions. The UNU Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR) has conducted research on states’ leniency and accountability measures toward individuals accused of association with jihadist groups. The project considers, inter alia: the roles women and girls play in association with jihadist groups; the sometimes coercive conditions under which they may develop associations; and the extent to which female relatives of men connected with jihadist groups are penalised for their indirect association.
UNRWA GBV indicators are a part of the Agency-wide monitoring framework and are reported on periodically.
Field research and analysis by country research teams in China, India, Indonesia for the research project “When and Why Do States Respond to Women's Claims? Understanding Gender-Egalitarian Policy Change in Asia” (2013-2016; final publications 2018).
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BB128/(httpProjects)/FFDCCF9EE4F2F9C6C1257BEF004FB03E?OpenDocument
Joint research activity with the Unicef Office of Research Innocenti on “Transformative Change for Children and Youth and the SDGs” (2017-2018) includes topic of violence against girls.
UNODC published “Evidential Issues in Trafficking in Persons Cases – Case Digest ”, a handbook that aims to assist criminal justice practitioners worldwide in addressing recurring evidential issues that are typical to trafficking in persons cases. It has analysed 135 cases from 31 jurisdictions and provides the reader, based on these real cases tried, with a range of options and possibilities to deal with particular evidential challenges.
In 2010, UNODC has received the GA mandate to collect data and report about trafficking in persons’ patterns and flows at national and international levels. This mandate is fulfilled with the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, published every two years. Data is collected according to sex disaggregation and forms of exploitation. Still nowadays, female represent the vast majority of the victims trafficking and sexual exploitation is the most reported form of trafficking worldwide.
UNODC is developing methodologies to monitor SDG indicator 16.2.2, on estimating the number of victims of trafficking by sex, age and forms of exploitation. This indicator is used to monitor SDG targets 16.2 and 5.2 on trafficking in children and women trafficking.
UNLIREC Comparative Legal Review: Normative Links between Gender-based Violence and Firearms Control Regulations - Case Study Peru
A Report on “The Impacts of the Crisis on Gender Equality and Women’s Wellbeing in European Union (EU) Mediterranean Countries” was prepared with the involvement of researchers from France, Greece, Italy and Spain. The report included the findings of the gendered impact of the crisis and its consequences for women in the EU Mediterranean Basin.
This study was intended to address the gap in the research about gendered impacts of the economic crisis at national and regional levels and to contribute to the Post-2015 development framework.
It provided insights on the impact of economic downturn on women’s well-being and supported the strategy for promoting women’s rights and gender equality, with a view of attaining the MDGs for 2015. It also explored possible strategies, which can help to minimize risks and alleviate vulnerable situations.