UN Women, the IFC and the UN Global Compact have taken action to support companies and women in the Arab States during COVID-19, recognizing that eliminating barriers to women’s economic participation and empowerment drives the growth of businesses and economies and improves the lives of families and communities.

Women’s economic empowerment is critical for sustainable peace and development in Libya. This study focuses on women’s empowerment in the economic track of Libya’s peace process. It considers the benefits of gender-mainstreaming and the normative framework that supports gender equality, including UN Security Council resolutions in relation to Libya and the Women, Peace and Security agenda, the peacebuilding framework for Libya and international human rights law.

This report on the proceedings of the global conference “Gender-inclusive peace processes: Strengthening women’s meaningful participation through constituency building” explores current challenges, best practices, and recommendations on how best to leverage the practice of constituency building to further gender-inclusive peace.

The paper considers the under-representation of women in high-level mediation and peacemaking positions. Set in the context of successive normative commitments to increase the representation of women in high-level mediation, the paper considers why peace process mediation appears to be an outlier in the general trend towards gender parity in UN senior posts in particular.

This report on the proceedings of the 2018 conference “Women’s meaningful participation in peace processes: Modalities and strategies across tracks”, explores innovations, trends, and challenges in the interplay between official, high-level processes and unofficial processes in which civil society plays a leadership role.

This brief presents emerging evidence of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on women’s economic empowerment. Complementing a separate UN Women policy brief on “COVID-19 and the care economy”, it considers the immediate gendered economic impacts, including widening socioeconomic divides and shifting national and international priorities for the allocation of resources, as well as the long-term implications for women’s employment and livelihoods.

This brief addresses the importance of women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation to an effective pandemic response and to peacemaking efforts, and how the women, peace and security agenda can provide a critical framework for inclusive decision-making and sustainable solutions. It also provides preliminary analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on women’s participation in ceasefires and peace processes and offers a series of recommendations, including on “building back better”.

With many businesses struggling to survive as a consequence of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, loss of jobs and income and rising working poverty are a reality for many workers. This document offers (interim) recommendations for employers to mitigate the negative consequences stemming from COVID-19.

UN Women’s Regional Office for the Arab States, in collaboration with UN Women Country Offices in Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, organized a two-day meeting Women and Young People in Peace Processes: Synergies and Cross-learning, funded by the Government of Germany. The meeting was held in Beirut, Lebanon and sought to provide a space for inter-generational dialogue between women and young people from countries affected by the conflict in the MENA region, to exchange strategies that have been utilized to mitigate conflict, to broker dialogue and influence track 1 peace processes in the region. Through this exchange and dialogue, the meeting sought to identify opportunities for strategic alliances and to define common demands.

Around the world, young women are working to prevent violent conflict, recover from crises, and build peaceful, tolerant communities, yet most peace and security interventions are blind to the needs and contributions of young women. This paper examines the diverse roles that young women play in these contexts and offers recommendations for ensuring their meaningful inclusion and participation in building and sustaining peace.