United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

The UN Women Safe Cities Free of Violence against Women and Girls Global Programme has continued to support national partners in five countries (Ecuador, Egypt, India, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda) to produce, test and offer for wide application and upscaling by local governments, a set of model approaches for preventing and reducing sexual violence against women and girls in public spaces in cities, and to expand its full impact potential for strengthening women’s empowerment, and enhance the quality of city life for all. Holistic programming includes building multisectoral partnerships in the areas of community mobilization, engagement of grassroots women, youth, men and boys, private sector, police, media; policy advocacy with local governments on practical urban safety measures, gender responsive budgeting, services provision for victims of violence. The focus of the country activities is on some of the most impoverished areas of the participating cities (Cairo, Kigali, New Delhi, Port Moresby and Quito). UN Women partners in this programme are UN Habitat, UNDP, UNFPA, UNESCO. Hide

UN Women in the Asia-Pacific region has partnered with UNDP, UNFPA and UNV for the Regional Joint Programme “Partners for Prevention: Working with Boys and Men to Prevent Gender-based Violence Regional Joint Programme, which takes a coordinated approach to support primary prevention of gender-based violence with the deeper involvement of boys and men. Hide

UN Women launched an initiative to celebrate the International Day on Violence against Women (25th November) directed to UN Staff in Algeria with the active involvement of all UN resident agencies, in particular UNHCR, UNFPA, UNIC. Hide

With sponsorship from the Government of Norway, OSAGI, now part of UN Women, collaborated with INSTRAW and ECLAC, to develop an online training course entitled Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) in Latin America and the Caribbean to be distributed by the Peace Operations Training Institute (POTI). A second course on the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) in Africa, is being finalised for distribution. The courses will provide students with an overview of the resolution as well as context-specific issues and challenges that impact effective implementation, and will outline the process of developing a National Action Plan on resolution 1325 (2000).As chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Women, Peace and Security former OSAGI and UNIFEM- now both part of UN Women, in consultations with Member States and UN entities, led and coordinated the development of both the framework and the set of indicators to track the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000). Hide

Support provided by former UNIFEM now part of UN Women for data collection and research provided the basis for informing the development of effective public policies and advocacy initiatives in countries such as Afghanistan, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Nigeria, Serbia and Uganda. Hide

In December 2010, UNDP and UN Women organized a workshop in Kampala, attended by several experts on transitional justice issues and reparation, focusing also on gender, with the objective to initiate a more integrated UN approach to reparations. Hide

Implementation continued of the multi-country programme of UNIFEM now part of UN Women on community-based peacebuilding and prevention of sexual and gender-based violence in Timor Leste, Liberia, Uganda, and Haiti. The joint programming initiative under the Inter-agency Task Force on Violence against Women works to develop the capacities of national stakeholders to achieve specific international commitments. Hide

In Asia-Pacific, the work of the inter-agency initiative “Partners for Prevention” (P4P) was ongoing. Engagingmen.net (www.engagingmen.net) is a website where practitioners can share resources and learn about training opportunities. “Partners for Prevention” (P4P) organized several training sessions to support national social media campaigns in China, India, and Indonesia. Demand Media, a leading online media company and expert in developing social media platforms, provides pro bono support for the national campaigns. In December 2010, P4P organized a meeting with various stakeholders from Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Fiji, the Philippines and Vietnam, who work to engage boys and men for ending violence against women. The participants agreed to work together to develop regional curricula and a collective approach for knowledge creation and sharing across the region.In December 2010, the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) “Standing Committee of Male Parliamentarians for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Children” met in Port Macquarie, Australia, where male parliamentarians from 13 countries signed a pledge to take action in their own countries and to stand together as a collective group to advocate for more actions for violence prevention among their peers. “Partners for Prevention” is supporting the Standing Committee of Male Parliamentarians as a collaborative partner with AFPPD and UNFPA. “Partners for Prevention” and AFPPD are conducting research on the challenges that parliamentarians face in moving prevention policy forward, and on ways to support them in their role in preventing violence. Hide

Advocacy and assistance by former UNIFEM now part of UN Women contributed to: improved policies and service delivery for women survivors of violence in Kazakhstan, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Haiti, Pakistan; increased access to legal assistance in Algeria, Kenya, Morocco, FYR Macedonia, Colombia, Argentina and Thailand; and economic empowerment initiatives for women survivors of violence in Morocco and Georgia. Additionally, in the context of the International Conference on the Role of Security Organs in Ending violence against women and girls in the framework of the UNiTE to End Violence Campaign, 12 African countries adopted the Kigali Declaration on the Role of Security Organs, reaffirming their commitments for action to continue building on best practice to expand justice and services for survivors in the continent. Hide

Former UNIFEM now part of UN Women supported ongoing training of judges, lawyers, police and other “duty bearers” in various countries, such as in the Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiji, Haiti and Indonesia. Hide