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In 2017, UNRWA carried out 135 trainings which engaged 2709 staff members across the Agency (Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza, West Bank, and Syria). Trainings focused on GBV and GBV in emergencies targeted staff in UNRWA’s different programmes.

UNRWA held workshops on domestic violence, a workshop for health staff on addressing major gender-based violence issues and a workshop on advocacy and campaigning in Lebanon. Protection clusters in North Lebanon were set up to train frontline staff on gender-based violence.

UNRWA does not generally work on legislation development but provides input as and when requested by host governments and partners.

UNRWA developed and finalized the new Gender Equality Strategy (2016-2021), 'Integrating Gender, Improving Services, Impacting Lives.' The new strategy consolidates gender mainstreaming in the Agency’s organizational processes and programmes and aims at improving service delivery and reducing vulnerabilities among Palestine refugee women, men, boys, and girls. In this light, it serves to guide and frame all gender-related work by the Agency, including work on GBV.

In partnership with Women Programme Centers (WPCs), UNRWA launched the “Campaign to Combat Violence Against Women”, throughout the region with events and training sessions on the sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) policy and workshops for field staff. UNRWA held workshops on domestic violence, including for Gaza staff and in the West Bank for regional staff. Protection clusters in North Lebanon were set up to train frontline staff on gender-based violence.

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.

In January 2009, UNRWA implemented its sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) policy "Prohibition of discrimination, harassment - including sexual harassment and abuse of power", supported by agency-wide training. The Agency researched initiatives to address violence against women within the region to determine best practices.

Capacity-building of UNRWA staff, including trainings, has been a focus for UNRWA in ensuring that addressing Gender Based Violence is embedded into the work done by the different Agency’s programmes. To that effect, UNRWA has started training staff on identifying and addressing GBV through different levels of trainings.  Trainings have served a dual purpose to not only in increasing staff capacity to respond to GBV, but also raise awareness and change perceptions of UNRWA staff.  To support the training of staff, UNRWA developed a GBV manual which was developed in 2012. In order to monitor to what extent staff understand and acknowledge their roles and responsibilities to address GBV, UNRWA carried out biannual readiness assessment questionnaires in all core programmes. Further, by looking at the return on trainings through identification, it is clear that even within programmes which have received high levels of trainings there have been persistent obstacles to reporting the identification of GBV survivors and referring them to appropriate services. This shows that while trainings have been crucial, it has not been sufficient on its own. Supporting mechanisms, such as revisions to staff terms of references, accountability frameworks and reference tools and guidelines to support staff in implementation, are necessary to improve the effectiveness and efficacy of the response and to ensure sustainability. UNRWA has been able to target staff from all its different programmes, including health, relief, and education with more than 4000 trainings in the period 2014-2015.

UNRWA has continued to regularly participate in the various UN taskforces, such as the UN Country Team Gender Taskforce, which aim to build national strategies to end violence against women in Lebanon, Syria and the Occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). In the latter, UNRWA has continued addressing gender-based violence through its participation in interventions and activities within the Millenium Development Goals Achievement Fund (MDG-F) Gender equality and Women’s Empowerment Project (Joint agency project).

In Lebanon, UNRWA conducted a training on detection, counselling, referral and follow up of gender-based violence and child survivors was conducted in December 2011 for 20 frontline staff members from Relief, Education, and Health sectors (Medical officers, midwives, Gynecologists/Obstetricians, head teachers, school counsellors, teacher counsellors, SWs, CDSSW/WP, CDSW/DP). An in-depth training will be conducted in March 2012 with the same participants. In December 2011, UNICEF, UNFPA and UNHCR concluded an 18-month project funded by ECHO in 9 countries (Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ivory Coast, CAR, Chad, Sudan, occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and Iraq) on Capacity Development around coordination of gender-based violence prevention and response. This project hasenabled 170 Gender-based Violence “Capacity Promoters” from those 9 countries to complete two-week train the trainers workshops on context-specific roll-out of standard good practices for gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response in emergencies, which resulted in over 360 multi-sectoral actors having being trained to effectively address GBV in their contexts. 9 Standard Operating Procedures for GBV prevention and response were updated or developed and principles of good coordination were reinforced in the 9 settings through roll-out of the GBV Coordination Handbook. An online, multi-language Community of Practice was established to foster ongoing learning and information exchange. UNRWA developed data collection and tracking systems to monitor gender based violence in the communities in Gaza, West Bank, Jordan and Syria, and will also establish this system in Lebanon in 2012. The information gathered is allowing UNRWA staff to better understand the prevalence of gender based violence, its impact, consequences, trends and patterns. UNRWA developed a training manual on addressing survivors of gender based violence, which includes identifying, detecting, counselling and referring cases. 1316 UNRWA frontline staff representing the health, education, relief and social services departments in addition to other staff from Gaza, West Bank, Syria and Jordan were trained on this manual.