In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
In doing so, UN Member States took an historic step in accelerating the Organization’s goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women.
The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system, which focused exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment:
- Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW)
- International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW)
- Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI)
- United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
The main roles of UN Women are:
- To support inter-governmental bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, in their formulation of policies, global standards and norms.
- To help Member States to implement these standards, standing ready to provide suitable technical and financial support to those countries that request it, and to forge effective partnerships with civil society.
- To hold the UN system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, including regular monitoring of system-wide progress.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 26 - 30 of 33Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) - currently ratified by 187 countries - is the only human rights treaty that deals specifically with rural women (Art. 14). Adopted in 1979 by the United Nations Generally Assembly, entered into force in 1981. The Convention defines discrimination against women as follows:
F.a: Strengthening SLFA for protecting the livelihood resources and combat the consequences of climate change
General
The Tamil Nadu CSO network Joint Action for Sustainable Livelihood (JASuL) has recently developed the farmers centric organization Sustainable Livelihood Farmers Association (SLFA) to create a farmers movement to fight against globalization policies which negatively affect the farming communities in Tamil Nadu. The goal of this JASuL project ”Strengthening SLFA for protecting the livelihood resources and combat the consequences of climate change in Tamil Nadu (phase 2)” is the empowered local communitie s’ command over the local livelihood resources, in terms of protection, promotion and management and also combating global warming and climate change.The project aims to 1) make climate change issues as integral part of farmer’s movements as the liveli hood issues e.g. by dissemination of climate change study findings and the possible alternatives; 2) strengthen and broaden of farmers movement (SLFA) and continue to empower JASuL members on livelihood and climate change related issues e.g. by developing organic farming technical support team and encouraging farmers to conduct regular meetings at district level; 3) continue to build alliance with other existing farmers movements at State and National Level e.g. by evolving common agenda for joint action; a nd 4) to pressurize central and state governments to prioritize livelihood issues (esp. restoration of water bodies) and review and reformulate the existing policies in favor of poor and marginalized farmers e.g. by reviewing the ongoing government program me and bring out mid term correction through peoples participation on farming subsidies, newly enacted land law, water policy, ground water law, agriculture biodiversity and by disseminating JASuL’s work via social media.The project is coordinated by Com munity Action for Development (CAD) working together with JASuL. Direct beneficiaries of the project are the small and marginal dry land farmers – 300 farming families from 12 dry land district, and 180 NGOs as member of JASuL district committees. Indire ct beneficiaries are the 16 existing farmer’s movements, Save the rice campaign, and 3 river network groups linked with JASuL as solidarity support groups. Community Action for Development (CAD) is a registered (in year 1978) and experienced nonprofit or ganization that serves among the small and marginal farmers in Perambalur district in the state of Tamil Nadu. Joint Action for Sustainable Livelihood Network (JASuL) is a loose NGO network evolved after the 2003 drought in TamilNadu as a civil society res ponse. Since that, JASuL has been active in TamilNadu on issues related to livelihood resources of the rural people. It has been continuously, consistently and systematically involved in building up organizational structures and empowering the communities to tackle the livelihood issues, especially water related issues. JASuL has developed farmer-centric organization - Sustainable Livelihood Farmers Association (SLFA). The main emphasis of SLFA was to create a farmers movement to fight against globalization policies which affects the farming communities in Tamil Nadu. Now, SLFA units were functioning in 60 sites in 30 sub basins covering 12 basins in TamilNadu with the membership of 943.
IGAD 2023 - 2026 Improving Land Governance in the IGAD Region
General
In a proposal dated April 2023, IGAD has requested Sweden to financially support a project called Improving Land Governance in IGAD region with a total sum of SEK 55 Million over a period of three years starting in April 2023. The new contribution builds on the gains that have been made in the project that is about to end. The overall goal of the project by IGAD is to enhance transnational land governance through capacity development on innovations in land administration, land use and management, strengthening gender equality and youth empowerment in the IGAD Region.
UNDP: The Sahel Resilience Project 2: DRR CC Adaptation for Resilience in Sahel - The Sahel Resilience Project
General
The seven Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal) are facing multiple interlinked shocks and stressors: climate induced factors as recurrent droughts and flooding, land degradation, high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition, rising insecurity, unequal access to basic services, poorly integrated markets and displacement. As in its first phase the project aims to build increased resilience to climate induced shocks and crisis in the Sahel (and Africa) by enhancing the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) thus strengthen the policy and institutional capacities at regional and national levels to better manage multidimensional risks through device mechanisms that anticipate and respond to the challenges the region faces. The project aimed to achieve results by the five outputs: 1) Increased capacity on tracking and monitoring progress on Sendai Framework and AU Program of Action implementation through enhanced data collection, analysis and reporting system; 2) Strengthened regional and multicountry regulatory, policy and budgetary frameworks for translating disaster and climate data into risk informed development planning and budgeting; 3) Enhanced regional recovery and resilience building processes that address underlying disaster and climate change risks and restore pathways to sustainable development in the Sahel Countries; 4) Enhanced Regional Capacities for Urban Risk Management in West Africa; and 5) Enhanced innovations and knowledge on risk informed development through Regional Dialogue and SouthSouth exchange.
Objectives
The Sahel resilience project phase 1 and this phase 2 aims to build increased resilience to shocks and crisis in the Sahel (and Africa) by strengthen the policy and institutional capacities at regional and national levels to better manage multidimensional risks through device mechanisms that anticipate and respond to the challenges the region faces by enhancing the implementation of the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction (SFDRR). The Project's expected outcome is that Regional institutions and national governments institutionalize and domesticate risk-informed development planning, programming, and investment for resilience building. This will integrate risk reduction in planning and investment decisions. This is done through the following results (outputs): Output 1: Increased capacity on tracking and monitoring progress on Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) and AU Programme of Action implementation in the Sahel region through enhanced data collection, analysis, and reporting systems Output 2: Strengthened regional and multi-country regulatory, policy, and budgetary frameworks for translating disaster and climate data into risk-informed development Output 3: Enhanced regional recovery and resilience-building processes that address underlying disaster and climate change risks and restore pathways to sustainable development in the Sahel countries Output 4: Enhanced regional capacities for urban risk management Output 5: Enhanced innovations and knowledge on risk-informed development through Regional Dialogue and South-South exchange (i) Disaggregated climate and disaster risk information must be collected, analyzed and utilized to inform the planning and investment decisions made by the national governments and the society; (ii) A conducive policy environment must be in place to guide and enhance capacities of regional and national institutions in the Sahel to understand and translate disaster and climate risk information into decision making processes for development that leave no-one behind; (iii) Sahel regional institutions, national governments and community members have systems and mechanisms in place to manage future recovery processes in a manner that is effective and promotes long-term resilience building; and (iv) Urban areas, which are the powerhouse for economic development, have robust urban risk management systems to respond and adapt to the increasing climatic and disaster risks such that it offers itself as a sustainable engine of transformation.
Secondary forests, commodity frontiers and the micro-politics of land claims: struggling to build smallholder
General
Secondary forests account for 70% of tropical forest areas. Despite the importance of these forests’ re-growth to climate change mitigation and livelihoods of poor smallholders living in them, they are almost invisible in research and of low priority in climate change agendas. Secondary forest areas are typically located in rural ‘frontiers’, where commodity crops expand and where government presence, authority and legitimacy is limited and land rights are contested. Taking the Peruvian Amazon as a case, this research will engage with two commodity frontiers (cacao, oil palm). We will explore how these commodity frontiers reshape smallholder secondary forest and the role of the law, the state, the market and smallholder land claims in relation to the making of diverse tropical secondary forest landscapes. We will explore the assemblages of commodity frontier actors around these commodity frontiers. Knowledge of how regrowth is enabled or hindered socially and politically in tropical landscapes, where competition for land is high and the state has limited control, is crucial for supporting future global/national forest policy and climate adaptation/mitigation agendas. It also contributes to improving the livelihoods of poor and forest dependent households. We will use village studies to capture the local dynamics of commodity frontiers. This will be combined with analyses of commodity markets, relevant policies and laws and their implementation.