In May 2022, the UN Women Regional Office for Arab States and the Government of Finland organized a two-day workshop titled “Women Building Peace in the Arab States: Regional Synergies and Cross-Learning” to highlight women’s mediation efforts in their communities and the lessons learned from interventions under the regional WPS programme and the Syria WPS programme.

On 13 April 2021, the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan, unrest began in East Jerusalem after the Israeli authorities installed metal barriers outside the Damascus Gate, blocking access to a public area for Palestinians.

This training manual aims to build the capacity of service providers on case management and psychosocial support to women and girls’ survivors of violence or exposed to its risk.

With thanks to the Government of Japan, who generously funded the regional LEAP and COVID-19 programmes as well as the resilience monitoring efforts, UN Women was able to roll-out the gender-sensitive resilience capacity index in 5 countries, namely Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen, through 11 of its implementing partners.

The May 2021 escalation of hostilities in Gaza and the COVID-19 pandemic have reinforced pressures facing women, girls, boys and men in the OPT. Women and girls are already disproportionately impacted by gender norms and pre-existing inequalities.This Gender Alert, produced thanks to funding from the Government of Norway, tackles such inequalities.

The objective of this regional assessment is to look at the implications of the macroeconomic response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Arab region. The regional mapping allows for identification of the dominant trends and policy priorities across different areas of interventions and looks at the potential implications of [largely] gender-blind macroeconomic responses and investments during the first six months of the pandemic.

This desk review summarises global and regional trends and best practices and techniques for reaching out remotely to women and girls who experience violence, including during lockdowns and to survivors of online violence.

UN Women is at the forefront of the global drive to remove gender barriers because we believe in a world of justice and human rights for everyone. Towards that end, and as the only United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality, we marshal the world’s best gender expertise and the considerable resources of the United Nations. We connect people in many realms, the national and international, the public and private, activists and officials. Together, our efforts are more than any of us could pursue alone.

The Guidance Note, produced through funding by the Government of Japan, includes practical tools and detailed recommendations to help stakeholders roll out high quality and gender-responsive CVA interventions.

This study and brief aim at providing insights on how gender and other intersecting inequalities impact the risk and vulnerability to HIV for women and girls in Africa.

The aim of this report is to present evidence on the impact of UN Women’s interventions and provide in-depth analysis around resilience and factors critical for strengthening resilience. This will allow UN Women to expand its evidence based on resilience and help better design programmes, ensuring that they are mainly based on needs and vulnerabilities of the population of concern.

Past Gaza wars provide valuable lessons on gender specific needs and vulnerabilities which should guide the humanitarian response to the current crisis in Gaza, according to a new analysis by UN Women.

Palestine’s Second National Action Plan for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security and Subsequent Resolutions follows the first National Action Plan adopted in 2016 recognizing the disproportionate impact of conflict and occupation on Palestinian women and girls and their vital participation in peacebuilding.

Women play an outsized role in the care economy in the Arab States, performing 4.7 times more unpaid care work than men – the highest female– to–male ratio anywhere in the world.

Through six case studies from Gaza, this report illustrates the imperative of integrating gender into the understanding of the impact of the humanitarian situation on Palestinians in Gaza and in providing aid that is responsive to their distinct gendered circumstances and needs.

This analysis of the existing NAPs-WPS of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia and Yemen was undertaken to assess and demonstrate the direct relevance of the plans to each country’s COVID-19 response. While NAPs-WPS are relevant in every crisis, the analysis highlights particular areas of overlap with specific global responses to COVID-19, thus providing critical evidence of the value of implementing nation action plans on women, peace and security in the current crisis.

The Gender Alert: Needs of Women, Girls, Boys and Men in Humanitarian Action in Palestine (2020) is developed to inform the 2021 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) . The Gender Alert provides robust multisectoral analysis with a focus on gender specific vulnerabilities. For the first time, the structure of the Gender Alert mirrors the structure of the HNO, in that it is divided into three sections, by consequences of the crisis, also called critical problems. Each section includes a thorough multisectoral analysis of vulnerable groups, which are the same identified vulnerable groups of the HNO.

This report consists of analyzed data and information collected for the banking sector, the public enterprise sector, Egyptian Stock Exchange listed companies, and the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) companies. The 2019 “Women on Boards Monitoring Report” analysis reveals that women represent 10% among a total number of 5,707 board members in the included categories. Overall, a total of 578 women are currently serving on Egyptian boards. One-hundred and thirteen qualified women are needed to join boards in the studied categories in Egypt annually, to reach the target of the National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women of 30% by 2030.

This brief suggests that domestic violence has increased in Palestine due to the conditions created by the COVID 19 pandemic, which in most cases resulted in a lockdown of survivors of violence with their abusers. With families in lockdown, helplines are seeing a surge of cases requesting a multitude of services.

In partnership with the National Council for Women in Egypt and UN Women, The Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research - Baseera, issued an infograph for a survey on Women and COVID-19 Pandemic in Egypt. The poll was conducted on a national representative sample of 1518 females in the age group 18+ during the period from April 4th to April 14th, 2020, with the aim of measuring the effect of COVID-19 on women's lives.