UNITAR Promoting Women’s Empowerment
and Gender Equality

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At the occasion of this last newsletter in 2020, it is time to reflect about a difficult year for all of us due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to look to the future. I am proud of what UNITAR has achieved over the past 12 months despite the pandemic as our work has shifted almost entirely online while we strove to ensure the best quality of our trainings, research and capacity-building activities.

For the coming year, UNITAR’s focus will be on identifying new opportunities, for example by integrating a health focus into existing and new programming, as well as further developing the technical and digital capabilities to enable our work.

Many of the articles in this newsletter focus on gender equality. In November 2020, UN Women announced "Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world” as the theme for the 2021 International Women’s Day - 8 March. Our collaboration with UN Women through our "Women’s Leadership Programme" was launched 5 years ago, while partnering with many other stakeholders since then, to deliver training and capacity building for women’s leadership for peace.

In times when progress on establishing and accelerating women's’ participation and leadership in decision making, peace and security, is at stake, we need to ensure that women’s contributions reach the table of discussions and that find a fertile ground to be developed and thrive, as widely proven to result in.

Health can be both the driver and the valuable fruit of peace and security. However, women representation in leading roles, including those who determine policies to confront the current health situation, is far from adequate and proportionate. At UNITAR, we cross-institutionally mainstream gender in our programmes and activities as a top-most priority. We realize now, more than ever, the urgency to deliver change in support of women empowerment and gender equality, by raising awareness on taking steps towards implementing SDG 5, and by strengthening the skills and capacities of women in leadership contexts, in local, national, and regional levels.

I wish you a healthy and peaceful holiday season and look forward to continuing our work with you in 2021.

Nikhil Seth

Executive Director

WHEN SHE LEADS FOR PEACE – NEW WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP FOR PEACE PROGRAMME

UNITAR has recently launched a new Women’s Leadership for Peace programme, recognizing the importance of women’s meaningful participation in leadership roles and in the promotion of stable and lasting peace. The initiative reflects our continued commitment to women’s empowerment and our Executive Director Nikhil Seth’s pledge for concrete action towards gender equality as an International Geneva Gender Champion.

SMALL STEPS TOWARDS GENDER EQUALITY – REFLECTIONS ON THE ROAD

How many steps did you take this year? “What kind of steps?” – some would wonder. Some would say: “Too many, how could I possibly count them?”. The fact is – steps can be different: big or small, quick and effortless, or time-consuming and requiring one to go above and beyond to even attempt them. Some steps can get you wherever you aim to be in no time, if taken from close proximity.

APPLYING A GENDER-SPECIFIC LENS TO THE RULE OF LAW

The “Overcoming Global Challenges through International Law” project aims to provide participants with new insights on highly topical legal issues, ranging from the rule of law, business and human rights, to climate change induced migration. In addition to raising participants’ awareness on such legal topics, each e-workshop also underlines the connection between the legal challenges and issues such as women empowerment and gender equality.

COLLABORATIVE STATACT WEBINARS TO DEAL WITH EMERGING DATA PROBLEMS

As National Statistical Offices (NSOs) have been experiencing disruptions in some of the important statistical activities due to the COVID-19 situation, the importance of short-term approaches and quick problem-solving has grown in relevance. StaTact developed by UNITAR in close collaboration with the UN Statistics Division offers exactly such a tool rooted in a tactical approach to statistical planning.

RAISING AWARENESS ABOUT CAR SAFETY FOR PREGNANT WOMEN

Sustainable Development Goal 11.2 calls to “…improve road safety...with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons”. With this target in mind, UNITAR’s Road Safety Training Initiative developed and launched the microlearning course “Car Safety during Pregnancy” aimed at raising awareness about the risks for pregnant women as passengers or drivers in a car.

ENHANCING WOMEN LEADERSHIP - THE ASPIRATION OF MULTILATERAL DIPLOMACY

Traditional gender stereotypes often hold the averse effect of excluding women from decision-making fields. Even where certain forms of position of powers are enabled for women, they are often restricted to less consequential areas of governance. providing aspiring leaders and allies with the necessary skills for empowerment is a crucial step to break the glass ceiling.

HER SEAT AT THE TABLE: WOMEN AND SELF-ADVOCACY - COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL MEDIATION CLINIC

The UNITAR New York Office held a training entitled “Her Seat at the Table: Women and Self-Advocacy” in partnership with Professor Alexandra Carter and Columbia Law School and as part of UNITAR’s commitment to promoting gender equality under the auspices of SDG Five.

The training covered the various barriers to full and equal participation that exist in society and the workplace and discussed various strategies that can be used to achieve gender equality. These include amplification, separating intent and impact, and allyship.

UNLOCKING WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ

Social entrepreneurship has grown over recent years to offer innovative solutions to development challenges while promoting the generation of livelihoods. This approach could be of great importance for countries in special situations, including countries in or emerging from conflict. UNITAR, launched the online course Frontier Technologies for Sustainable Development: Unlocking Women’s Entrepreneurship through Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Afghanistan and Iraq, to enhance women’s entrepreneurship that contributes to the achievement of the SDGs and that harnesses frontier technologies, especially AI.

PANDEMIC SPURS UNITAR TO EMPOWER MORE WOMEN WITH MOBILE LEARNING

While people across the globe are locked down under the COVID-19 pandemic and face-to-face learning has been curtailed, UNITAR is leveraging its extensive experience delivering innovative mobile-based learning to reach an increased number of women in spite of disruptions.

By quickly ramping up and expanding our online presence, we continue to provide these women with the leadership, entrepreneurial, and financial literacy skills they need to improve their livelihoods in the face of the pandemic, challenge gender norms, and transform their societies.

ADOPTING GENDER RESPONSIVE APPROACH ON CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES

There is a direct link between gender equality, women empowerment and climate change. Women are among the groups that are most vulnerable to the impacts of the increasing levels of natural resource depletion and environment degradation. At the same time, their voices and concerns are often excluded from the processes of policy-planning and decision-making that seek to tackle climate change, reduce inequality and curb the environmental crisis that we currently face.

CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING IN AGRIBUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP EMPOWERS 400 OGONI WOMEN IN NIGERIA

A total of 400 women selected from the four Ogoni Local Government Areas comprising of Eleme, Tai, Khana and Gokana in Rivers State, Nigeria have benefited from an Agribusiness Skill Training and Empowerment Programme which held from 19th July to 26th September 2020, organized by UNITAR in collaboration with the Federal Government of Nigeria.

UPCOMING EVENTS AND LEARNING SOLUTIONS